THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 

From  the  Library  of 

Henry  Goldman,  Ph.D. 

1886-1972 


OUR  ENGLISH 


BY 

ADAMS  SHERMAN  HILL 

BOTLSTON    PROFESSOR   OF   RHETORIC   AND   ORATORY 
IN    HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


NEW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 
CHAUTAUQUA   PRESS 

C    L.  S.  C.  DEPARTMENT 

150  FIFTH  AVKXUK 

1890 


The  required  books  of  the  C.  Ji.  S.  C.  are  recommended  by  a  Council 
of  six.  It  wiMsf,  hoirever,  be  understood  that  recommendation  does  not 
involve  an  approval  bi/  the  Council,  or  by  any  member  of  it,  of  every 
principle  or  doctrine  contained  in  the  book  recommended. 


Copyright,  1838,  by  HARPER  i  BROTUKIO. 


Copyright,  1890,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  r,'o*ft  rtuntd. 


Annex 


NOTE. 

THE  five  papers  which  make  up  this  volume 
have  already  been  published,  substantially  in 
their  present  form  :  I.  and  V.  in  HAEPEK'S 
MONTHLY  MAGAZINE  ;  II.  and  III.  in  SCKIB- 
NEK'S  MAGAZINE;  and  IV.  in  THE  CHRISTIAN 
REGISTER. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY, 
Jan,  2, 1889. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ix 

ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS 1 

ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES 72 

ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS   .     .  102 

ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT 141 

COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH 190 


In  prose  I  doubt  whether  it  be  even  possible  to 
preserve  our  style  wholly  unalloyed  by  the  vicious 
phraseology  which  meets  us  everywhere,  from  the 
sermon  to  the  newspaper,  from  the  harangue  of  the 
legislator  to  the  speech  from  the  convivial  chair, 
announcing  a  toast  or  sentiment.  Our  chains  rattle 
even  while  we  are  complaining  of  them.  .  .  .  Much, 
however,  may  be  effected  by  education. — S.  T.  COLK- 
KIDGS:  Biographia  Liiera.no.  (1817). 


INTRODUCTION. 


WHILE  writing  the  essays  that  make  up 
this  volume,  I  have  had  steadily  in  mind  two 
things ;  first,  the  difficulty  which  every  Amer- 
ican must  find  in  speaking  and  writing  his 
mother-tongue  uniformly  well ;  secondly,  the 
duty  which  devolves  upon  each  of  us  to  fur- 
ther the  cause  of  good  English  by  precept  or 
example,  or  both. 

Among  a  people,  like  the  French  or  the 
Germans,  whose  language  is  characterized  by 
a  complicated  grammar,  the  minutiae  of  gram- 
mar must  be  taught  in  the  schools,  and  the 
gap  between  those  who  have  mastered  these 
minutiae  and  those  who  have  not  will  be  wider 
than  among  a  people  like  ours,  with  a  lan- 
guage in  which  grammatical  changes  of  form 


X  OUR  ENGLISH. 

are  few.  Thus,  the  very  ease  with  which  a 
passably  correct  knowledge  of  English  may 
be  acquired  renders  absolute  correctness  very 
rare. 

In  America,  moreover,  English  suffers  from 
the  fact  that  we  have  no  universally  acknowl- 
edged tribunal — no  academy,  no  court,  no  up- 
per class — to  settle  disputed  questions.  Where 
every  man  is  as  good  as  every  other  man,  every 
man's  English  is  accounted  as  good  as  every 
other  man's. 

Hence,  the  ubiquity  of  bad  English.  Chil- 
dren hear  bad  English  from  nurses,  playfel- 
lows, and,  alas!  from  parents  also.  College 
students  hear  it  from  other  college  students, 
and  now  and  then  from  teachers  also ;  and  they 
read  it  in  text-books  which  darken  counsel  by 
words  without  knowledge.  A  clerk  in  a  count- 
ing-room is  exposed  to  contagion  from  the  talk 
of  his  fellow-clerks,  and  from  the  commercial 
slang  of  business  letters.  A  lawyer  is  exposed 
to  the  pedantry  and  the  redundancy  of  legal 
documents,  and  to  the  confused  statements  of 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

garrulous  clients ;  a  minister,  to  the  cant  of 
deacons  and  the  slip-slop  of  tea-drinkings ;  a 
doctor,  a  farmer,  a  journalist,  an  author,  is  beset 
by  dangers  peculiar  to  his  calling.  Every  form 
of  society — large  or  small,  democratic  or  ex- 
clusive— has  its  pet  variety  of  bad  English. 

To  the  family  circle  the  boys  and  girls  con- 
tribute slang  of  all  sorts,  which,  far  from  being 
frowned  upon  by  their  elders,  is  laughed  at  by 
the  father  and  endured  by  the  mother.  If 
an  effort  be  made  to  improve  the  family  En- 
glish, ten  to  one  it  is  not  the  parents  who 
make  it,  but  the  children,  eager  to  air,  at  the 
old  people's  expense,  newly  acquired  and  often 
inaccurate  knowledge. 

In  general  conversation,  the  liberty  insepa- 
rable from  spontaneousness  and  freshness  of 
speech  often  degenerates  into  license  or  stif- 
fens into  affectation.  In  magazines  and  books, 
errors  usual  with  hasty  writers  for  hasty  read- 
ers are  imitated  by  those  who,  though  them- 
selves not  pressed  by  time  or  by  poverty, 
give  currency  to  expressions  which  in  their 


xii  OUR  ENGLISH. 

hearts  they  condemn.  Even  among  our  most 
successful  speakers  and  writers — successful  in 
all  senses  but  the  highest  —  are  some  whose 
English  is  striking  rather  than  pure ;  who, 
in  the  effort  to  say  smart  things,  sacrifice  ac- 
curacy of  expression  as  well  as  truth  of  sub- 
stance. 

Of  speakers  or  writers  who  have  their  spurs 
yet  to  win,  how  many  resolve  that  they  will 
never  win  them  by  foul  means?  How  many 
enter  the  field  in  the  spirit  in  which,  during 
the  so-called  Dark  Ages,  a  knight  prepared 
himself  for  his  chosen  service?  How  many 
feel  that  it  is  their  duty  to  the  public  and  to 
themselves  not  only  to  state  the  truth  as  they 
understand  it,  without  fear  or  favor,  but  also 
to  state  it  in  the  very  best  language  at  their 
command  ? 

So  long  as  so  few  do  this  plain  duty,  so  long 
as  so  many,  instead  of  leading,  are  led  by  their 
inferiors,  those  who  wish  to  learn  how  to  say 
with  clearness  what  they  think  with  vigor,  and 
who  naturally  look  for  guidance  in  this  difficult 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

art  to  men  of  superior  powers,  are  inevitably 
misled.  When  they  see  expressions  that  they 
have  been  taught  to  avoid  stamped  with  the 
approval  of  a  recognized  authority,  they  nat- 
urally feel  justified,  not  only  in  using  these 
particular  expressions,  but  also  in  adopting 
others  which,  though  not  so  well  supported, 
seem  to  them  no  more  objectionable.  Thus 
one  bad  example  obliterates  many  good  pre- 
cepts, and  the  line  between  good  and  bad 
English  is  gradually  obscured. 

Such  are  some  of  the  influences  that  tend 
to  draw  the  lover  of  pure  English  from  the 
strait  and  narrow  path,  in  which  there  is  plenty 
of  room,  into  some  one  of  the  broad  ways  that 
are  thronged  by  a  chattering  crowd. 

To  keep  as  closely  as  possible  to  this  strait 
and  narrow  path  is  the  plain  duty  of  each  of 
us.  Ko  one  who  knows  how  to  frame  a  sen- 
tence with  tongue  or  with  pen  but  can  do 
something  in  the  right  direction.  Even  the 
child  who  says  "  as  I  do "  instead  of  "  like  I 
do,"  "  you  were  "  instead  of  "  you  was,"  "  shall 


xiv  OUR  ENGLISH. 

I  ?"  instead  of  "  will  1  ?"  serves  the  mother- 
tongue.  So  does  the  young  woman  who 
never  says  "My  partner  was  awful  nice,"  or 
"  I  love  caramels  " ;  the  young  man  whose  talk 
never  smells  of  stable,  billiard-room,  or  mid- 
night oil ;  the  writer  of  school  or  college  com- 
positions who  prefers  " begin  "  to  "  commence" 
or  "  inaugurate,"  "  corning  "  to  "  advent,"  "  wa- 
ges" to  "remuneration,"  "farmer"  to  "agri- 
culturalist," "place"  to  "locality,"  "give"  to 
" donate,"  " on  the  carpet "  to  " on  the  tapis" 
So  does  the  village  politician  whose  diatribes 
are  grammatical  and  pointed.  So  does  the 
author  of  a  book,  of  a  newspaper  paragraph, 
or  of  a  private  letter,  who  always  writes  his 
best.  Those  who  have  great  talents  and  un- 
usual opportunities  as  speakers  or  as  writers 
can  do  much  for  the  good  cause :  but  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  can  do  something;  for 
every  word  tells  for  good  or  for  evil  on  him 
who  utters  it  and  on  at  least  one  other  person. 
There  is  no  danger  that  this  duty  will  be 
overdone.  In  every  walk  of  life  the  uniformly 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

faithful  arc,  and  are  always  likely  to  be,  in  the 
minority.  Strenuous  and  united  efforts  on  the 
part  of  all  who  love  good  English  are  needful 
to  preserve  the  treasures  of  our  noble  language 
and  literature  intact.  If  our  classics  are  to  re- 
main intelligible;  if  Shakspere  and  Milton, 
Bacon  and  Addison,  are  still  to  be  read  with 
case ;  if  Scott  and  Thackeray,  Cardinal  New- 
man and  Mr.  Ruskin,  Hawthorne  and  Emer- 
son, are  to  be  as  readily  understood  by  our 
children's  children  as  by  us ; — we  must,  each 
in  his  sphere,  try  to  keep  pure  the  language 
in  which  they  wrote. 

English  is,  no  doubt,  growing,  and  it  will 
continue  to  grow  so  long  as  it  is  a  living  lan- 
guage ;  but  if  the  growth  be  really  growth, 
and  not  corruption  or  decay,  if  it  consist  in  the 
flowing  in  of  fresh  sap  and  the  putting  forth  of 
new  branches,  it  will  not  injure,  but  will  pre- 
serve those  parts  of  the  old  tree  which  are  best 
worth  preserving.  Growth  we  cannot,  if  we 
would,  arrest;  but  we  can  do  something  to 
make  it  healthy  and  vigorous. 


I. 

ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS. 


EVEKY  child's  English  is  affected,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  for  better  or  for 
worse,  by  causes  that  begin  to  operate 
long  before  he  is  required  to  write  com- 
positions at  school.  The  descendant  of 
men  and  women  who  have  for  genera- 
tions habitually  spoken  and  written  the 
mother-tongue  with  correctness  and  ease, 
will  naturally  use  better  English  than 
the  child  of  illiterate  parents ;  and  if  he 
be  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  nurse  whose 
language  is  not  very  faulty,  a  mother 
whose  own  English  is  pure,  and  who 
1 


2  OUR  ENGLISH. 

takes  pains  to  give  a  wise  direction  to 
her  children's  reading,  play-mates  who 
are  not  addicted  to  slang  or  ungram- 
matical  expressions  (if  such  play-mates 
can  be  imagined),  and  teachers  who  are 
neither  prigs  nor  slovens  in  their  use  of 
words,  he  will,  other  things  being  equal, 
retain  the  superiority  he  had  at  birth. 

Not  that  a  well-born  and  carefully 
nurtured  boy  has  it  all  his  own  way  even 
in  the  matter  of  English.  His  ancestors 
may  have  talked  or  written  themselves 
out,  and  have  left  him,  like  the  barren 
fig-tree,  with  plenty  of  leaves,  but  no 
fruit.  His  facility  with  words  may  be 
a  facility  fatal  not  only  to  thought,  but 
also  to  strength  and  directness  of  expres- 
sion. A  family,  on  the  other  hand, — the 
Carlyles  or  the  Hawthornes,  for  example, 
— which  has  for  generations  dealt  with 
things  rather  than  with  words,  may  at 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  3 

length  produce  a  great  writer,  in  whom 
the  wisdom  long  amassed  in  silence  finds 
literary  expression, — a  writer  who  does 
not,  indeed,  acquire  complete  command 
of  language  without  making  exception- 
ally arduous  exertions,  but  who  inherits 
the  energy  and  the  persistency  that  lead 
to  success  in  every  undertaking. 

In  the  matter  of  education  too,  the 
race  may  be  to  those  who  possess  "  stay- 
ing qualities"  rather  than  to  the  well- 
equipped,  to  the  tortoise  rather  than  to 
the  hare.  One  boy  who  has  all  possi- 
ble advantages  at  home  and  in  school 
may  fail  to  profit  by  them ;  another  boy 
will  feel  his  disadvantages  so  keenly,  and 
will  try  so  resolutely  to  overcome  them, 
that  he  cannot  but  succeed — up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  at  least.  The  speech  of  the 
over-cultivated  may  be  languidly  correct 
and  nothing  more,  or  it  may,  in  an  un- 


4:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

guarded  moment,  fall  into  errors  that 
have  the  charm  of  forbidden  fruit;  the 
speech  of  the  under  -  cultivated  may 
abound  in  faults,  and  yet  may  have  life 
and  movement. 

Into  the  hands  of  the  teacher  of  Eno1- 

o 

lish  come  pupils  who  differ  thus  widely 
from  one  another  in  everything  that  can 
be  affected  by  birth  or  by  early  training. 
Since  they  began  to  talk,  they  have  been 
talking  English  (good,  bad,  or  indiffer- 
ent), as  Moliere's  M.  Jourdain  talked 
prose,  without  knowing  it;  but  they  have 
as  yet  written  nothing  except  exercises  in 
penmanship  and  spelling,  and  brief  let- 
ters to  mother  or  father  which  were  read 
with  the  eyes  of  affection  not  disposed 
to  be  critical.  Now,  for  the  first  time, 
they  are  asked  to  write  an  English  com- 
position. 

The  conditions  under  which  they  are 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  5 

to  write  differ  in  different  schools.  Some 
teachers  leave  their  pupils  great  freedom 
in  the  choice  of  topics,  in  order  that  each 
may  be  enabled  to  write  about  something 
that  he  knows  and  is  interested  in:  oth- 
ers prescribe  a  subject,  in  order  that  the 
unpractised  hand  may  be  held  close  to  a 
definite  line  of  work :  others  vary  their 
method,  in  order  to  adjust  it  to  the  indi- 
vidual needs  of  each  pupil;  and  this, 
when  practicable,  is  undoubtedly  the  best 
plan. 

Whatever  the  method,  the  result  is  in 
most  cases  the  same — failure.  Even  she 
whose  talk  is  the  life  of  the  school  at  re- 
cess, writes  as  if  she  were  on  her  good 
behavior  at  a  funeral.  Even  he  who 
takes  the  lead  among  his  fellows  in  ev- 
erything that  requires  quickness  of  wit, 
becomes  insufferably  dreary  the  instant 
he  puts  pen  to  paper.  If  the  lively  are 


6  OUR  ENGLISH. 

dull,  and  the  quick-witted  sluggish,  when 
they  undertake  to  write  compositions, 
what  must  be  the  condition  of  their  less 
clever  companions?  Unhappy  pupils  of 
a  more  unhappy  teacher ! 

That  the  difficulty  of  which  I  have 
spoken  is  real,  and  is  all  but  universal, 
will  be  admitted  by  every  one  who  has 
had  much  to  do  with  the  compositions 
of  beginners.  Whence  comes  this  diffi- 
culty ?  Can  it  be  conquered  ? 

What  reason  is  there,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  why  a  boy  who  talks  well  should 
not  write  well,  if  he  can  be  made  to  use  a 
pen  as  naturally  as  he  uses  his  tongue,— 
or,  in  other  words,  to  forget  himself  in 
what  he  is  writing,  as  he  forgets  himself 
while  talking  with  his  playmates?  Why, 
but  because  this  if  is  a  lion  in  the  way  ? 
A  boy  must  have  written  much  before 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  7 

lie  can  form  his  letters  without  special 
pains ;  and  much  more  before  he  can  set 
down  what  he  has  to  say  without  stum- 
bling over  punctuation,  spelling,  and 
grammar;  and  more  still  before  he  can 
write  with  facility. 

Now,  so  long  as  a  boy  has  to  struggle 
at  every  step  with  difficulties  connected 
with  the  mechanics  of  writing,  it  will  be 
difficult  for  him  to  give  his  mind  to  the 
thing  to  be  written,  not  only  because  his 
mind  is  otherwise  employed,  but  also  be- 
cause the  mental  attitude  of  a  person 
who  is  absorbed  in  the  substance  of 
what  he  is  writing  is  entirely  different 
from  that  of  one  who  is  obliged  to  pay 
attention  to  penmanship  and  other  mi- 
nutiae connected  with  the  process  of  put- 
ting words  upon  pa'per. 

If,  then,  the  ill  success  of  beginners  in 
English  composition  be  justly  attribu- 


8  OUR  ENGLISU. 

table  to  their  inability  to  retain  fresh- 
ness and  life  while  struggling  with  me- 
chanical difficulties  at  every  step,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  methods  of  teaching  in 
our  schools  are  radically  defective :  for  a 
sound  method  would  prevent  both  the 
sacrifice  of  substance  to  form,  and  that 
of  form  to  substance;  a  sound  method 
would  teach  a  young  writer  to  beware 
both  of  purchasing  correctness  of  expres- 
sion by  dulness,  and  of  trying  to  secure 
interest  at  the  cost  of  accuracy.  Dul- 
ness is  death ;  ignorance  of  elementary 
rules  stamps  a  man  as  illiterate,  and  illit- 
eracy cannot  but  injure  the  influence  of 
the  most  powerful  writer  writh  cultivat- 
ed readers,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  with 
uncultivated  ones  also. 

Many  teachers,  however,  act  as  if  they 
thought  it  more  important  that  a  boy 
should  spell  and  punctuate  correctly  than 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  9 

that  he  should  write  an  essay  which  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  read.  Others,  in  the  fear  of 
taking  the  life  out  of  a  composition,  pass 
lightly  over  errors  in  grammar,  and  leave 
spelling  and  punctuation  to  take  care  of 
themselves.  Others  still — and  this  I  be- 
lieve to  be  the  most  numerous  class — try 
to  achieve  both  objects  at  once,  and  fail 
of  achieving  either:  their  pupils  are 
characterized  by  a  mediocrity  of  attain- 
ment; they  have  ceased  to  be  natural 
and  spontaneous,  and  they  are  oppressed 
by  the  obligation  to  form  their  sentences 
correctly,  but  do  not  know  how  to  fulfil 
that  obligation. 

O 

Boys  who  have  received  no  instruc- 
tion in  English  composition  before  go- 
ing to  college  seem  to  be  better  off,  on 
the  whole,  than  those  who  have  had 
such  instruction  as  is  sometimes  given. 
A  boy  fresh  from  a  single  reading  of  a 


10  OUR  ENGLISH. 

novel,  for  example,  or  from  a  single  rep- 
resentation of  a  play  of  Shakspere,  will, 
if  he  has  been  thoroughly  interested  in 
the  story,  tell  it  in  his  own  words  much 
better  than  another  who  has  been  drilled 
on  every  chapter  in  the  novel  or  every 
scene  in  the  play.  It  is  possible  so  to 
treat  the  best  books  as  to  make  them 
burdensome  rather  than  interesting  or 
stimulating  to  the  youthful  mind.  I 
have  heard  of  a  boy  who  came  down 
from  his  room  groaning  at  his  misfort- 
une in  having  been  kept  in-doors  by  his 
work. 

"What  is  the  woe  this  time?"  asked 
his  sympathizing  aunt. 

"  Oh,  I  had  to  read  ten  chapters  of  the 
'Vicar  of  Wakefield.'" 

In  one  school,  a  boy  was  expected 
to  get  three  hundred  pages  of  "  Henry 
Esmond"  into  his  mind  within  twenty- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  11 

four  hours.  In  another  school  the  class 
went  through  the  same  book  at  a  snail's 

O 

pace,  the  teacher  doing  his  best  to  trans- 
form a  lively  narrative  into  a  series  of 
tedious  exercises.  Instead  *of  calling  at- 
tention to  the  main  points  of  the  story, 
to  the  characteristics  of  the  principal  per- 
sonages, or  to  beauties  of  style,  he  spent 
his  strength  on  unimportant  details, — de- 
manding, for  example,  all  the  particulars 
of  the  attack  by  the  mob  on  the  carriage 
of  old  Lady  Castle  wood,  including  an 
answer  to  the  important  question  wheth- 
er the  first  vegetable  to  hit  Father  Holt 

O 

was  a  cabbage,  a  carrot,  or  ,a  potato. 

In  a  school  of  a  very  different  class, 
the  study  of  authors  is  made  so  inter- 
esting that  pupils  who  are  preparing  for 
colleges  which  have  no  examination  in 
English  are  in  the  habit  of  joining  the 
class  in  this  subject  for  their  own  pleas- 


12  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ure  —  an  anomaly,  I  believe,  in  the  an- 
nals of  American  institutions  of  learn- 
ing. 

As  regards  the  results  of  the  teaching 
of  English  in  some  of  our  best  schools 

o 

and  academies,!  may  be  pardoned  for  re- 
ferring to  my  own  observation.  Between 
1873  (when  Harvard  College  for  the  first 
time  held  an  examination  in  English) 
and  1884, 1  read  several  thousand  compo- 
sitions written  in  the  examination-room 
upon  subjects  drawn  from  books  which 
the  candidates  were  required  to  read  be- 
fore presenting  themselves.  Of  these  a 
hundred,  perhaps, — to  make  a  generous 
estimate, — were  creditable  to  writer  or 
teacher  or  both.  In  1884,  Mr.  (now 
Professor)  Briggs,  who  then  took  charge 
of  the  examination,  wrote  to  me  as  fol- 
lows: "Few  [compositions]  were  re- 
markably good,  and  few  extraordinarily 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  13 

bad ;  a   tedious   mediocrity  was   every- 
where." * 

It  is  this  tedious  mediocrity  which  has 
amazed  me  year  after  year.  In  spelling, 
punctuation,  and  grammar  some  of  the 
compositions  are  a  great  deal  worse  than 
the  mass,  and  some  a  little  better ;  but  in 
other  respects  there  is  a  dead  level,  rarely 
varied  by  a  fresh  thought  or  an  individual 
expression.  Almost  all  the  writers  use  the 
same  commonplace  vocabulary — a  very 
small  one  —  in  the  same  unintelligent 
way.  One  year,  after  reading  two  or 
three  hundred  compositions  on  "The 
Story  of  'The  Tempest,'"  I  found  my 
recollections  of  both  plot  and  characters 

*  This  judgment  holds  good  of  the  productions 
of  subsequent  years.  See  "The  Harvard  Admis- 
sion Examination  in  English,"  by  L.  B.  K.  Briggs, 
in  The  Academy  (Syracuse,  N.  Y.)  for  September, 

1888. 


14:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

so  confused  that  I  had  to  read  the  play 
to  set  myself  right  again. 

The  authors  of  these  discouraging  man- 
uscripts may  be  justly  regarded  as  the 
picked  youth  of  the  country.  They  were, 
almost  all  of  them, 

"Just  at  the  age  'twixt  boy  and  youth, 
When  thought  is  speech,  and  speech  is  truth." 

They  were  all  boys  with  blood  in  their 
veins,  and  brains  in  their  heads,  and 
tongues  that  could  talk  fast  enough  and 
to  the  purpose  when  they  felt  at  ease. 
Many  of  them  came  from  the  best  fam- 
ilies in  point  of  culture  and  breeding, 
and  from  the  best  schools  we  have. 
Many  of  them  had  enjoyed  "The  Tem- 
pest" (who  that  can  understand  it  does 
not  ?),  but  somehow  the  touch  of  pen  or 
pencil  paralyzed  their  powers. 

If  the  dreary  compositions  written  by 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  15 

the  great  majority  of  candidates  for  ad- 
mission to  college  were  correct  in  spell- 
ing, intelligent  in  punctuation,  and  unex- 
ceptionable in  grammar,  there  would  be 
some  compensation ;  but  this  is  so  far 
from  being  the  case  that  the  instructors 
of  English  in  American  colleges  have  to 
spend  much  of  their  time  and  strength 
in  teaching  the  A  B  C  of  the  mother- 

O 

tongue  to  young  men  of  twenty — work 
disagreeable  in  itself,  and  often  barren  of 

O  / 

result.  Every  year  Harvard  sends  out 
men  —  some  of  them  high  scholars — 
whose  manuscripts  would  disgrace  a  boy 
of  twelve ;  and  yet  the  college  can  hard- 
ly be  blamed,  for  she  cannot  be  expected 
to  conduct  an  infant  school  for  adults. 

Is  there  any  remedy  for  this  state  of 
things? 

I  venture  to  say  that  there  is ;  but  it 
is  one  which  demands  persistent  and 


16  OUR  ENGLISH. 

long-continued  work  and  hearty  co-oper- 
ation on  the  part  of  all  who  have  to  do 
with  the  use  of  English  in  our  schools 
in  any  form  and  for  any  purpose.  It 
requires  intelligent  supervision  at  one 
time,  intelligent  want  of  supervision  at 
another  time,  and  watchful  attention  con- 
stantly. It  requires  a  quick  sense  of  in- 
dividual needs,  and  ready  wit  to  provide 
for  them  as  they  arise. 

My  plan  is  briefly  as  follows : 
First,  I  would  begin  as  early  as  possible 
to  overcome  the  mechanical  difficulties 
of  writing,  and  would  use  all  practicable 
means  and  all  possible  opportunities  to 
do  so ;  secondly,  I  would  not  frighten  a 
boy  with  "compositions"  or  "essays"  or 
"  themes,"  till  he  could  form  his  sentences 
with  tolerable  correctness  and  use  his 
pen  with  freedom ;  but,  thirdly,  when  I 
had  once  set  him  to  writing  compositions, 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  17 

I  would  keep  him  steadily  at  the  work, 
and  at  the  same  time  would  make  him 
take  an  interest  in  what  he  is  doing, 
and  impress  him  with  the  importance 
of  having  something  to  say,  and  of  say- 
ing that  something  well. 

First.  As  soon  as  a  child  has  learned 
to  form  his  letters  without  trouble,  his 
attention  should  be  called,  not  only  to 
spelling,  punctuation,  and  grammar,  but 
also  to  the  choice  of  words  and  to  the 
construction  of  simple  sentences ;  and  he 
should  be  obliged  to  master  every  point 
that  comes  under  the  head  of  correctness. 
In  this  matter  the  instructor  should  not 
spare  himself,  should  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  spend  time  on  the  curiosities  of 
language  or  in  the  pleasant  places  of  lit- 
erature, rather  than  in  the  correction  of 

petty  errors,  and  should  constantly  bear 
2 


18  OUR  ENGLISH. 

in  mind  that,  unless  petty  errors  are  cor- 
rected at  the  beginning,  there  is  danger 
that  they  never  will  be. 

Knowledge  of  conventional  rules  is,  I 
am  told,  of  incomparably  less  importance 
than  the  possession  of  those  qualities  in 
style  which  give  a  man  the  power  to 
influence  other  men's  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions; but  this  remark,  true  enough  in 
itself,  has  no  application  to  children.  In 
English,  as  in  everything  else,  children 
must  be  taught  the  rudiments  first.  To 

o 

omit  them  altogether,  or  to  postpone 
them  too  long,  is  to  act  like  a  student 
in  architecture  who  should  pay  no  at- 
tention to  questions  of  construction,  or 
should  take  them  up  for  the  first  time 
after  he  had  acquainted  himself  with  the 
mysteries  of  the  so-called  Queen  Anne 
style.  Such  an  architect  might  forget  to 
leave  room  in  his  plan  for  a  necessary 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  19 

staircase,  and  his  chimneys  would  surely 
smoke.  Such  a  writer  would  be  lame  in 
his  grammar,  and  would  probably  not 
know  how  to  spell  or  to  punctuate. 

Not  that  I  would,  in  pursuance  of  Mr. 
Benjamin  F.  Butler's  advice,  replace  the 
spelling-book  in  its  former  commanding 
position  in  the  schools,  and  compel  boys 
and  girls  to  learn  long  lists  of  words 
which  they  would  have  no  occasion  to 
use:  but  every  one  should  be  able  to 
spell  the  words  that  are  often  on  his 
lips,  or  often  under  his  eye  in  the  books 
he  studies  or  reads.  Not  that  I  would 
perplex  a  young  mind  with  punctuation 
as  a  system,  or  with  nice  questions  be- 
tween semicolons  and  colons :  but  every 
one  should  at  an  early  age  be  taught 
the  difference  between  the  period  and 
the  comma,  and  the  principal  functions 
of  each ;  every  one  should  be  taught, 


20  OUR  ENGLISH. 

too,  the  general  principle  that  a  point 
serves  as  a  guide  to  the  construction,  and 
through  the  construction  to  the  meaning 
of  a  sentence. 

Above  all,  the  time  and  the  energies 
of  the  young  should  not  be  wasted  upon 
formal  grammar.  "As  he"  [man],  says 
Bacon, "hath  striven  against  the  first  gen- 
eral Curse  by  the  Invention  of  all  other 
Arts,  so  hath  he  sought  to  come  forth  of 

'  O 

the  second  general  Curse,  which  was  the 
confusion  of  Tongues,  by  the  Art  of  Gram- 
mar :  whereof  the  use  in  a  mother-tongue 

O 

is  small,  in  a  foreign  tongue  more;  but 
most  in  such  Foreign  Tongues  as  have 
ceased  to  be  Vulgar  Tongues,  and  are 
turned  only  to  learned  tongues" 

The  misfortune  of  our  schools  has  been 
that  they  have  transferred  the  nomen- 
clature and  the  system  of  the  learned 
tongues  to  the  mother-tongue,  in  which, 

O  O          '  ' 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  21 

as  Bacon  truly  says,  the  use  of  grammar 
is  small.  The  consequence  has  too  often 
been  that  the  art  which,  according  to 
Bacon,  was  invented  to  relieve  man  from 
the  second  general  curse,  has  become  a 
third  curse. 

Within  the  last  few  years,  as  we  all 
like  to  believe,  this  curse  has  in  a  meas- 
ure been  lightened.  Even  teachers  of 

O 

Latin  and  Greek  are  less  disposed  to  load 
the  memories  of  boys  and  girls  with  rules 
and  exceptions,  and  are  giving  the  neces- 
sary information  by  the  way,  as  it  were, 
and  in  a  manner  that  enables  their  pu- 
pils to  perceive  some  relation  between 
the  facts  of  grammar  and  the  language 
and  literature  studied.  The  best  instruct- 
ors in  English  are  moving  in  the  same 
direction ;  but  few  of  them  are  moving 

/  O 

far  enough  or  fast  enough. 

Would  not  our  schools  be  better  off, 


22  OUR  ENGLISH. 

on  tbe  whole,  if  every  vestige  of  the 
Lindley  Murray  system  were  swept  out 
of  them  ?  There  are  teachers  of  English, 
I  know,  who  make  the  study  of  gram- 
mar and  the  analysis  of  sentences  profit- 
able to  their  pupils ;  but  how  many 
precious  hours  are  wasted  on  mere  pars- 
ing, as  if  it  were  not  more  important  for 
a  child  to  understand  a  given  sentence 
as  a  whole  than  to  know  that  this  word 
in  the  sentence  is  a  noun,  that  word  a 
preposition,  that  one  an  adverb  of  man- 
ner,— or  whatever  it  may  be  called  in 
the  treatise  in  vosjue  at  the  moment. 

O 

Several  hours  judiciously  used  should 
suffice  to  teach  an  intelligent  boy  the  few 
points  of  grammar  which  it  is  most  nec- 
essary to  know;  for  the  assertion  that 
English  is  "a  grammarless  tongue,"though 
an  exaggeration, — and  a  harmful  one  if 
understood  literally, — has  a  basis  in  the 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  23 

fact  that  the  changes  of  form  in  English 
words  are  very  few,  and  that  the  rules 
of  syntax  are  far  simpler  in  our  language 
than  in  most  others.  A  few  nouns  form 
peculiar  plurals,  a  few  verbs  peculiar  par- 
ticiples, and  a  very  few  verbs  are  pecul- 
iar throughout;  but  most  of  these  excep- 
tions occur  in  words  which  everybody 
uses  so  often  that  it  is  easy  to  learn  the 
correct  forms.  A  similar  remark  may  be 
made  concerning  who  and  ivhom,  I  and 
me,  and  the  other  pronouns.  Let  a  boy 
be  taught  to  use  his  pronouns  correctly, 
and  to  place  them  where  there  can  be 
no  doubt  as  to  their  antecedents;  to 
couple  singulars  with  singulars  and  plu- 
rals with  plurals ;  to  observe  the  distinc- 
tion between  shall  and  ivill;  to  put  verbs 
referring  to  the  same  time  in  the  same 

O 

tense;  not  to  destroy  a  negative  by  doub- 
ling it ;  not  to  interpolate  adverbs  be- 


24  OUR  ENGLISH. 

tween  the  two  parts  of  the  infinitive,  as 
in  to  llindly  follow,  to  so  say  (a  common 
error);  to  insert  every  word  that  is  es- 
sential to  the  grammar,  and  to  strike 
out  every  word  that  is  superfluous; — 
let  a  boy  be  taught  these  things,  and 
he  will  be  far  on  the  road  to  correct  ex- 
pression. 

Grammatical  accuracy  should,  in  my 
judgment,  be  taught  by  example  rather 
thau  by  precept,  indirectly  rather  than 
directly.  What  progress  there  would  be 
if  all  the  teachers  in  the  schools  of  every 
grade  were  all  the  time  on  the  watch  for 
errors!  —  if  they  never  allowed  one  to 
pass,  in  an  oral  or  a  written  exercise,  in 
notes  of  lectures,  in  examination-books,  in 
note-books,  or  even  in  conversation  in  the 
school-room ! 

In  the  classical  schools,  teachers  of 
Greek  and  Latin  may  do  much  to  help 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  25 

the  cause  of  good  English  without  going 
out  of  their  way,  or  of  what  should  be 
their  way.  They  may  insist,  for  exam- 
ple, that  every  translated  sentence,  wheth- 
er spoken  or  written,  shall  be  a  good 
English  sentence  at  all  points.  This  is 
done  in  England ;  and  hence  it  is  that 
Eton  and  Harrow  boys,  though  they 
receive  little  training  in  their  own  lan- 
guage by  itself,  write  better  English  than 
American  boys  of  the  same  age.  This 
is  done  in  France;  and  hence  it  is  that 
every  educated  Frenchman  writes  idio- 
matic French. 

In  this  country  too,  I  am  happy  to  say, 
more  and  more  attention  is  paid  to  Eng- 
lish by  teachers  of  other  subjects.  In  sev- 
eral quarters,  students  in  Latin  or  Greek, 
French  or  German,  are  encouraged  to 

'  O 

make  translation  a  means  of  enrichin^ 

O 

their   English   vocabulary,  and    enlarg- 


26  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ing  their  knowledge  of  English  idioms. 
The  master  of  one  academy  within  my 
knowledge  does  not  allow  his  pupils  to 
make  the  ordinary  word-for-word  trans- 
lation of  the  Latin  ablative  absolute.  He 
insists  that  the  sentence,  "Tarquin  hav- 
ing been  expelled,  two  consuls  began  to 
be  created  instead  of  one  king,"  or  the 
sentence,  "  No  one  will  be  about  to  be  a 
thief,  we  being  the  aid,"  is  not  an  Eng- 
lish sentence,  is  not  the  English  equiv- 
alent of  the  Latin.  At  least  one  college 
has,  at  the  instance  of  the  English  in- 

'  O 

structors,  inserted  the  folio  wins:  words 

/  O 

in  its  statement  of  the  requirements  for 
admission  to  the  Freshman  Class:  "The 
passages  set  for  translation  must  be  ren- 
dered into  simple  and  idiomatic  English. 
Teachers  are  requested  to  insist  on  the 
use  of  good  English  as  an  essential  part 
of  the  candidate's  training  in  transla- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  27 

tion" — a  requirement  which,  if  strictly 
enforced,  cannot  fail  to  tell  for  good  upon 
the  candidate's  command  of  his  mother- 
tongue. 

The  truth  is  that  the  study  of  other 
languages  than  our  own,  whether  ancient 
or  modern,  may  be  so  pursued  as  to  harm 
the  cause  of  good  English,  or  so  pursued 
as  to  be  of  great  service  to  it.  Not  a  few 
graduates  of  preparatory  schools  resem- 
ble the  young  man  in  one  of  Mr.  James 
Payn's  novels,  "  whose  education  had 
been  classical,  and  did  not,  therefore,  in- 
clude spelling."  A  teacher  wrote  to  me 
in  grieved  surprise  at  the  failure  of  two 
of  his  best  pupils  to  pass  "with  credit"  in 
English  composition.  Re-examining  the 
books,  I  discovered  that  each  of  the  two 
boys  had  been  guilty  of  a  sentence  like 
one  of  those  quoted  above — a  sentence 
such  as  no  English-speaking  person  who 


28  OUR  ENGLISH. 

had  not  had  frequent  dialogues  with  the 
dead  languages  would  have  written.  On 
the  other  hand,  translation  may  be  one 
of  the  best  means  of  improving  the  style 
and  stimulating  the  powers  of  expres- 
sion. It  has  been  so  used  by  many  fa- 
mous men.  Rufus  Choate,  for  example, 
whose  command  of  language  was  unsur- 
passed, made  a  point  of  spending  an  hour 
or  more  every  day  in  rendering  into 
English  passages  from  another  tongue, 
returning  sometimes  day  after  day  to  the 
same  passage,  until  he  had  succeeded  in 
giving  to  his  English  all  the  merits  of 
the  original.  "Translation,"  he  is  re- 

O  ' 

ported  to  have  said,  "should  be  pursued 
to  bring  to  mind  and  to  employ  all  the 
words  you  already  own,  and  to  tax  and 
torment  invention  and  discovery  and  the 
very  deepest  memory  for  additional,  rich, 
and  admirably  expressive  words." 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  29 

Examination  -  books  may  be  treated, 
as  they  are  in  some  of  our  schools,  not 
merely  as  tests  of  knowledge,  but  also 
as  exercises  in  expression.  Instead  of 
resembling,  as  they  too  often  do,  the  pro- 
ductions of  an  illiterate  mind  and  an 
unpractised  hand,  instead  of  undoing  in 
three  hours  all  the  good  that  has  been 
gained  in  three  weeks  of  instruction  in 
English,  they  may  be  made  of  real  serv- 
ice to  the  student  by  giving  him  practice 
in  stating  what  he  knows  in  exact  and 
intelligible  words.  If  he  expects  all  his 
written  work  to  be  judged,  in  part,  by 
the  quality  of  his  English,  he  will  take 
pains  to  express  himself  correctly.  To 
secure  this  result,  every  teacher  might  at 
least  do  what  is  done  in  some  schools  in 
Ohio:  he  might  give  a  certain  percent- 
age of  the  examination  marks  for  pen- 
manship, neatness,  and  accuracy,  and 


30  OUR  ENGLISH. 

might  oblige  every  scholar  to  write  in 
ink — a  safeguard  against  slovenliness. 

Correctness  and  clearness  of  expres- 
sion are  all  that  the  teachers  of  other 
subjects  than  English  can  be  expected  to 
find  time  for :  but  these  they  should  de- 
mand, in  their  own  interest  and  in  that 
of  their  specialty,  as  well  as  in  the  in- 
terest of  their  pupils  and  of  the  mother- 
tongue  ;  for  a  man  cannot  properly  be 
said  to  know  a  thing  until  he  knows  it 
well  enough  to  be  able  to  make  a  state- 

O 

ment  about  it  that  shall  be  intelligible 
to  an  intelligent  reader. 

Somewhat  more  may  be  done  by  the 
teacher  who  makes  it  his  business  to  ex- 
amine a  piece  of  written  work  as  an 
exercise  in  English.  He  may  welcome 
every  spark  of  intellectual  life,  every 
picturesque  phrase,  every  happy  turn 
of  sentence,  every  strong  word  he  comes 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  31 

upon,  and  even  some  expressions  that, 
though  open  to  criticism,  are  often  on 
the  boy's  lips  and  naturally  flow  from 
his  pen.  He  should  leave  free  play  to 
individuality,  remembering  that  an  opin- 
ion which  is  a  boy's  own  is  worth  more 
to  him  than  the  most  orthodox  dogmas 
taken  at  second  hand.  "  To  sit  as  a 
passive  bucket,"  says  Carlyle,  "and  be 
pumped  into,  whether  you  consent  or 
not,  can,  in  the  long-run,  be  exhilarating 
to  no  creature."  Not  even  if  the  pump 
draws  from  the  well  of  truth;  and  which 
of  us  can  be  sure  that  his  private  pump 
does  that  ? 

Among  the  things  which  teachers  of 
every  class  should  struggle  against  is 
what  I  must  be  pardoned  for  calling 
"  school-masters'  English" — the  dialect  of 

O 

men  and  women  whose  business  keeps 
them  in  close  relations  with  young 


32  OUR  ENGLISH. 

minds,  and  who,  being  to  a  great  ex- 
tent cut  off  from  intercourse  with  the 
world  outside  of  the  school -room,  are 
apt  to  attribute  undue  importance  to 
petty  matters,  to  insist  upon  rules  in 
cases  where  the  best  usage  leaves  free- 
dom of  choice,  to  prefer  bookish  and 
pompous  ways  of  putting  things  to  easy 
and  natural  ones. 

In  many  schools,  boys  and  girls  are 
taught  to  put  commas  between  the  sev- 
eral parts  of  the  address  on  the  envelope 
of  a  letter.  The  rule  would  be  correct 
if  the  words  forming  the  address  were 
written  continuously,  as  in  the  body  of  a 
book ;  but  the  separation  of  each  part  of 
the  address  from  every  other  part  alters 
the  question.  Consequently,  some  of  the 
most  careful  writers — following  the  fash- 
ion of  modern  title-pages  and  of  inscrip- 
tions on  monuments  in  public  squares 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  33 

and  cemeteries — either  put  a  period  at 
the  end  of  each  line,  or  leave  out  all 
stops  except  those  which  mark  abbrevia- 
tions. Some  teachers  insist  that  the  rel- 
ative that  should  be  used,  instead  of 
wlio  or  wliich,  when  the  relative  clause 
serves  to  restrict  the  meaning  of  the  an- 
tecedent, and  that  who  or  which  should 
be  used,  instead  of  that,  when  the  rela- 
tive clause  adds  something  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  antecedent,  or  explains  it ;  and 
yet  the  best  authorities,  from  Addison  to 
Anthony  Trollope,  obey  no  such  rule,  but 
are  guided  by  the  ear  in  their  choice  be- 
tween who  or  which  and  that.  A  distinc- 
tion is  set  up  in  the  schools  between  each 
other  and  one  another,  according  as  the 
reference  is  to  two  or  to  more  than  two 
persons ;  and  yet  scarcely  a  good  author 
can  be  found  who  does  not  use  the  two 
forms  interchangeably.  Another  article 
3 


34  OUR  ENGLISH. 

of  the  school-master  creed  holds  that  a 
sentence  should  never  end  with  a  prep- 
osition,— as  if  the  most  idiomatic  writ- 
ers, the  writers  easiest  and  most  agreea- 
ble to  read,  did  not  abound  in  such  sen- 
tences. 

In  the  cases  that  have  been  mentioned, 
the  best  usage  is  against  the  school-mas- 
ters ;  but  even  when  there  is  a  question 
between  two  forms  of  expression,  usage 
being  almost  equally  divided,  a  teacher 
will  do  well  to  postpone  discussion  of 
the  disputed  point  till  his  pupils  have 
mastered  those  parts  of  the  language  on 
which  good  writers  are  agreed. 

Still  another  danger  of  teachers  springs 
from  their  disposition  to  set  an  undue 
value  on  the  slavish  reproduction  by 
pupils  of  what  they  have  heard  from  the 
desk.  The  writing-master  calls  that  the 
best  "  chirography "  which  most  nearly 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  35 

resembles  his  own  "copper-plate,"  flour- 
ishes and  all ;  the  elocutionist  rates  most 
highly  the  pupil  who  succeeds  best  in 
imitating  his  master's  tones  and  gest- 
ures; and  the  teacher  of  English  too 
often  has  most  praise  for  sentences  that 
resemble  his  own — particularly  if  they 
are  free  from  all  faults  except  that  of 
having  no  merits.  No  system  is  more 
likely  than  this  to  arrest  the  growth  of 
a  young  mind  and  to  stunt  its  powers 
of  expression ;  for  "  frigid  correctness,"  in 
the  words  of  Cherbuliez,  "  is  the  bane  of 
all  art." 

Worst  of  all  forms  of  school  -  master 
English  are  those  that  come  from  unwill- 
ingness to  call  a  spade  a  spade. 

"  I  have  been  trying  for  years,"  said  a 
school-girl,  the  other  day, "  to  say  '  I  rose 
at  seven,'  instead  of  got  up — got  is  such 
a  horrid  word !" 


36  OUR  ENGLISH. 

"  Do  you  say  retire  instead  of  go  to 
bed?" 

"  Oh  yes :  I  have  been  taught  to  avoid 
common  expressions." 

That  is  to  say,  this  innocent  young 
girl  had  been  taught  to  despise  the 
words  of  daily  life,  and  to  affect  the 
vulgar  finery  and  sham  delicacy  charac- 
teristic of  those  who  talk  about  culinary 
department,  hymeneal  altar,  caskets  for 
the  remains  of  the  departed,  author  of  my 
being,  maternal  relative,  patrons  of  hus- 
bandry, potables,  nether  extremities,  or 
lower  limbs — that  part  of  the  person 
which  is  referred  to  in  the  rule  of  a  sem- 
inary quoted  in  Longfellow's  "Kava- 
nagh,"  the  rule  which  forbade  the  young 
ladies  to  "  cross  their  benders"  * 

*  After  reading  this  paper,  on  its  first  appear- 
ance, the  author  of  "  The  Confessions  of  a  Frivolous 
Girl"  "dropped  into"  verse,  as  follows: 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  37 

It  is  not  well-bred  persons  who  are 
ashamed  to  use  the  brief,  simple,  definite, 

(After  reading  Prof.  A.  S.  Hill's  article  on  "English  in  the 
Schools,"  in  HARPER'S  MONTHLY  for  June.) 

IMMODESTY. 

I  am  a  modest  little  maid, 

Who  thinks  it  more  polite 
To  bid  a  man  "good-evening," 

Than  bid  a  man  "good-night." 
And  when  the  human  members 

Are  spoken  of  by  him, 
I  always  call  what  doctors  call 

"A  leg"  "a  lower  limb." 

I  am  a  modest  little  maid, 

Who  never  goes  to  bed ; 
But  to  my  chamber  I  "retire" 

Most  properly  instead. 
And  when  the  chaste  Aurora 

Unseals  my  sleepy  eyes, 
The  act  which  some  call  "getting  up" 

I  designate  "to  rise." 

I  never  speak -of  feeling  "sick," 

But  always  say  I'm  "ill." 
And  being  in  my  dressing-gown, 

I  style  "en  dishabille." 
In  fact  I  always  hesitate 

To  call  a  spade  a  spade, 
Because,  you  see,  I  try  to  be 

A  modest  little  maid. 

ROBERT  GRANT. 


38  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ordinary  words  which  naturally  come  to 
the  lips.  It  is  not  the  writers  of  leaders 
in  our  best  newspapers,  but  the  penny-a- 
liners,  the  reporters  of  fires  and  police 
items,  who  have  the  fondness  for  vague 
words  and  tawdry  circumlocutions  which 
gives  rise  to  the  "  elegant "  diction  of 
teachers  like  Mrs.  General  in  "  Little 
Dorrit,"  as  displayed  in  her  conversa- 
tions with  Miss  Fanny,  her  pupil. 

" '  They  wouldn't  have  been  recalled 
to  our  remembrance,  I  suspect,  if  uncle 
hadn't  tumbled  over  the  subject.' 

" '  My  dear,  what  a  curious  phrase  !' 
said  Mrs.  General.  'Would  not  "inad- 
vertently lighted  upon,"  or  "  accidentally 
referred  to,"  be  better  ?' 

"'Thank  you  very  much,  Mrs.  Gen- 
eral,' returned  the  young  lady.  'No;  I 
think  not.  On  the  whole,  I  prefer  my 
own  expression.' 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  39 

"  This,"  continues  Dickens,  "  was  al- 
ways Miss  Fanny's  way  of  receiving  a 
suggestion  from  Mrs.  General.  But  she 
always  stored  it  up  in  her  mind,  and 
adopted  it  at  another  time." 

A  teacher  very  different  from  Mrs. 
General  was  the  master  of  the  school 
(Christ's  Hospital)  where  Lamb  and 
Coleridge  were  taught.  Of  him  Cole- 
ridge says,  "In  our  own  English  com- 
positions (at  least  for  the  last  three 
years  of  our  school  education),  he  showed 
no  mercy  to  phrase,  metaphor,  or  image 
unsupported  by  a  sound  sense,  or  where 
the  same  sense  might  have  been  con- 
veyed with  equal  force  and  dignity  in 
plainer  words.  Lute,  harp,  and  lyre, 
Muse,  Muses,  and  inspirations,  Pegasus, 
Parnassus,  and  Hippocrene,  were  all  an 
abomination  to  him.  In  fancy  I  can  al- 
most hear  him  now  exclaiming, '  Harp  ? 


40  OUR  ENGLISH. 

• 

harp  ?  lyre  ?  Pen  and  ink,  boy,  you  mean ! 
Muse,  boy,  Muse?  Your  nurse's  daugh- 
ter, you  mean  !  Pierian  spring  ?  Oh 
ay  !  the  cloister  pump,  I  suppose.'  " 

It  was  this  same  master,  hostile  to  the 
sham  -  classical  as  he  was,  who  moulded 
Coleridge's  taste  in  both  ancient  and 
modern  literature,  and  taught  him  sound 
principles  of  criticism  in  poetry. 

Secondly.  I  would  not  require  a  boy 
or  a  girl  to  write  a  formal  composition 
until  the  elementary  difficulties  of  work 
with  the  pen  shall  have  been  in  a  great 
measure  overcome.  If  good  English  has 
been  treated  from  the  very  beginning 
of  school-life,  not  as  a  thing  by  itself, 
but  as  part  and  parcel  of  every  study 
in  which  the  mother -tongue  is  used, 
whether  orally  or  in  writing ;  if  the 
pupil  has  been  taught  to  regard  skill 


„  ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  41 

in  the  use  of  his  own  lansfua^e  as  an 

O          O 

essential  of  scholarship,  without  which 
a  so-called  educated  man,  however  ex- 
tensive his  knowledge  of  books,  must  be 
deemed  a  learned  dunce ;  if  he  has  been 
accustomed  to  write,  not  for  the  sake  of 
writing,  but  in  order  to  put  what  he 
knows  on  a  given  subject  into  a  porta- 
ble form ;  if  he  has  written  so  often  and 
so  much  as  to  have  overcome  the  dif- 
ficulties connected  with  the  manual  la- 
bor of  penmanship ;  if  his  errors  in 
spelling  have  never  been  allowed  to 
pass  uncorrected,  and  his  memory  has 
been  forced  by  constant  exercise  to  mas- 
ter the  arbitrary  forms  of  words  that  are 
in  ordinary  use ;  if  he  has  been  made  to 
see  that  the  rules  of  punctuation  and 
grammar,  though  to  a  certain  extent  ar- 
bitrary, are  for  the  most  part  helps  to 
the  accurate  and  prompt  communication 


42  OUR  ENGLISH. 

of  thought  from  one  mind  to  another, 
and  that  a  like  principle,  as  carried  out 
in  practice  by  the  best  authors,  under- 
lies all  rules  which  determine  the  choice, 
the  number,  and  the  order  of  words  in 
any  piece  of  writing ; — if,  in  short,  a  pu- 
pil has  been  led  gradually  and  incident- 
ally to  acquaint  himself  with  the  rudi- 
ments of  good  English,  more  will  have 
been  done  towards  teaching  him  the  art 
of  composition  than  could  have  been  ac- 
complished by  the  writing  of  essays  on 
topics  outside  of  his  regular  studies — es- 
says which  would  have  been  burdens  to 
him,  because  clear  additions  to  his  usual 
tasks,  and  bugbears,  because  so  infre- 
quent that  he  did  not  get  used  to  them. 
This,  which  may  be  called  the  indirect 
method  of  teaching  the  rudiments  of  Eng- 
lish, has  one  decided  advantage  over  the 
direct  method,  in  addition  to  those  al- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  43 

ready  mentioned.  The  English  of  an 
examination-book  or  of  a  translation  ap- 
pears to  the  pupil  to  be,  as  it  really  is,  a 
means  to  an  end,  like  the  English  he 
talks  on  the  playground  or  at  an  even- 
ing party.  The  English  of  a  boy's  for- 
mal essay,  on  the  contrary,  may  be,  and 
often  is,  merely  words  that  serve  no  pur- 
pose, and  seem  to  him  to  serve  none, 
except  that  of  filling  the  prescribed 
number  of  pages.  At  an  examination, 
his  knowledge  of  the  facts  on  which 
each  question  is  based  supplies  material 
for  his  sentences,  and  the  questions  on 
the  paper  direct  him  in  the  use  of  that 
material ;  in  the  formal  essay  he  has,  or 
thinks  he  has,  nothing  to  say  on  the 
subject  given  out,  and  he  is  usually  sup- 
plied with  nothing  definite  to  guide  his 
mind  and  steady  his  steps.  "Scholars 
in  Universities,"  says  Bacon,  "  come  too 


44  OUR  ENGLISH. 

soon  and  too  unripe  to  Logic  and  Rhet- 
oric, arts  fitter  for  Graduates  than  Chil- 
dren and  Novices:  for  these  two,  rio;ht- 

'          O 

ly  taken,  are  the  gravest  of  Sciences, 
being  the  Arts  of  Arts ;  the  one  for  Judg- 
ment, the  other  for  Ornament :  and  they 
be  the  Rules  and  Directions  how  to  set 
forth  and  dispose  matter;  and,  therefore, 
for  minds  empty  and  unfraught  with 
matter,  and  which  have  not  gathered  that 
which  Cicero  calleth  Sylva  and  Supellex, 
stuff  and  variety,  to  begin  with  those 
Arts  (as  if  one  should  learn  to  weigh,  or 
to  measure,  or  to  paint  the  Wind)  doth 
work  but  this  effect,  that  the  wisdom  of 
those  Arts,  which  is  great  and  universal, 
is  almost  made  contemptible,  and  is  de- 
generate into  childish  sophistry  and  ridic- 
ulous affectation.  And  further,  the  un- 
timely learning  of  them  hath  drawn  on, 
by  consequence,  the  superficial  and  un- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  45 

profitable  teaching  and  writing  of  them, 
as  fittest,  indeed,  to  the  capacity  of  chil- 
dren." 

Thirdly.  Compositions,  when  they  are 
required,  should  be  written  so  often  as 
to  form  an  important  part  of  school  work. 
So  far  as  is  possible  under  the  conditions 
of  the  school,  they  should  be  made  to 
flower  naturally  out  of  that  part  of  each 
pupil's  life  in  which  he  is  most  at  home, 
be  it  work  or  play.  He  should  be  made 
to  understand  that  the  essential  part  of 
an  essay  is  thought,  well-organized  and 
well-expressed ;  that  to  comprehend  clear- 
ly and  to  feel  strongly  what  one  has  to 
say  are  the  indispensable  conditions  of 
making  others  comprehend  and  feel  it. 
A  boy  should  never  sit  down  to  write 
until  he  has  substantially  settled  his 
course  of  thought ;  but  when  he  does 


46  OUR  ENGLISH. 

begin,  he  should  give  his  whole  mind  to 
the  work  of  expressing  his  ideas  in  lan- 
guage that  can  be  easily  understood. 

A  wise  teacher  of  English  will  try  to 
make  his  pupils  put  their  real  selves 
behind  the  pen,  and  keep  them  there. 
Anxious  not  to  do  anything  that  shall 
cramp  the  free  play  of  individual  talent, 
he  will  at  first  be  careful  to  let  some 
elementary  faults  pass  unnoticed ;  for 
"  many  a  clever  boy,"  as  Scott  says  in 
his  diary, "  has  been  flogged  into  a  dunce, 
and  many  an  original  composition  correct- 
ed into  mediocrity."  A  wise  teacher  will 
give  special  attention  to  the  acquirement 
of  unity  and  flow,  the  qualities  which 
belong  to  a  composition,  as  distinguished 
from  a  disorderly  and  inharmonious  col- 
lection of  words. 

To  the  end  of  unity,  the  pupil  should 
be  taught  that  each  of  his  sentences  must 

O 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  47 

contain  one,  and  but  one,  proposition, — 
that  is,  must  say  but  one  thing, — stated 
as  briefly  and  plainly  as  is  consistent 
with  clearness  and  fulness  of  statement, 
and  that  each  must  be  so  framed  as  to 
carry  on  the  thought  from  what  precedes 
to  what  follows ;  that  each  of  his  para- 
graphs must  deal  with  a  single  part  of 
the  subject  in  hand,  and  be  made  up  of 
sentences  which  belong  together  by 
virtue  of  their  common  relation  to  that 
part ;  that  a  new  paragraph  must  begin 
when  a  new  division  of  the  subject  is 
entered  upon,  and  that  this  new  para- 
graph must  contain  that  which  comes 
next  in  order  of  thought  to  the  para- 
graph it  follows.  If  there  is  method  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  words  in  a  sen- 
tence, of  the  sentences  in  a  paragraph, 
and  of  the  paragraphs  in  an  essay,  the 
essay  as  a  whole  will  mean  something, 


48  OUR  ENGLISH. 

if  the  writer  has  a  meaning,  and  some- 
thing definite. 

One  good  way  of  teaching  a  boy  how 
to  find  out  what  is,  and  what  is  not, 
in  his  own  essay  is  to  have  him  make 
an  abstract  of  it  in  ten  lines.  He  will 
either  fail  to  do  so  because  there  is  noth- 
ing to  make  an  abstract  of,  or  he  will 
succeed,  and  in  succeeding  will  discover 
how  to  rearrange  his  materials,  if  they 
need  rearrangement,  so  as  to  call  order 
out  of  chaos.  If  a  would-be  fine  writer 
can  open  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  his 
essay  has  no  body,  he  is  likely  to  find 
something  to  say  next  time.  If  a  con- 
fused writer  can  be  made  to  bring  the 
meaning  of  one  of  his  obscure  sentences 
into  light,  he  will  express  himself  more 
clearly  in  future;  for  he  will  perceive 
that  he  has  gained  by  the  change,  in 
space  as  well  as  in  perspicuity.  In  writ- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  49 

ing/  as  in  house-keeping,  to  have  a  place 
for  everything  is  to  save  time,  temper, 
and  work  for  all  concerned. 

Unity  of  composition  may  be  furthered 
by  the  practice  of  prescribing  definite  sub- 
jects for  essays,  and  of  insisting  that  pu- 
pils shall  confine  themselves  to  the  exact 
subject  prescribed.  The  inevitable  result 
of  giving  out  a  vague  subject  is  a  vague 
and  confused  piece  of  writing,  or  a  com- 
position like  those  of  two  school-girls  of 
whom  I  heard  the  other  day.  Being  re- 
quired to  write  upon  Friendship,  they 
put  their  heads  together  with  a  view  to 
the  production  of  essays  that  should  rep- 
resent their  united  efforts,  and  should  at 
the  same  time  differ  from  each  other. 
One  began  thus:  "There  are  two  kinds 
of  friendship."  The  other  opened  in  a 
more  stately  style:  "Friendship  may  be 
regarded  as  consisting  of  two  kinds  or 
4 


50  OUR  ENGLISH. 

varieties."  What  can  a  girl  or  a  boy 
find  to  say  on  Friendship,  or  on  a  sub- 
ject like  those  given  in  an  English  book 
on  composition  recently  published, — 
"Home  Rule;"  "The  Channel  Tunnel;" 
"  What  is  Poetry  ?  Expound  this  sub- 
ject by  obverse  illustration" — ? 

Ask  a  girl  or  a  boy  to  write  about 
poetry,  or  punctuality,  or  perseverance, 
or  consistency,  and  she  or  he  will  write 
about  and  about  it  —  about  the  word, 
that^is  to  say,  not  stopping  to  define  it, 
but  repeating  it  over  and  over  again, 
and  saying  things  more  or  less  distantly 
connected  with  it,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  occur  to  the  memory ;  for  the  mind 
can  hardly  be  said  to  take  part  in  the 
exercise. 

He  or  she  will  do  somewhat  better  if 
asked  to  write  on  subjects  like  the  fol- 
lowing: "One  should  learn  to  like  poetry 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  51 

early ;"  "  The  punctual  man  wastes  more 
time  than  the  uupunctual ;"  "  Genius  is 
an  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains;" 
"Consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  little 
minds ;" — will  do  better  because  each  of 
these  texts  contains  an  assertion  which 
may  be  sustained  or  refuted  by  argu- 
ment, that  is,  by  well-ordered  thought. 
The  difficulty,  however,  with  topics  of 
this  class  is  that  they  cannot  be  satisfac- 
torily discussed  without  more  information 
than  children  possess.  Even  if  the  teach- 
er supplies  the  requisite  knowledge,  boys 
and  girls  will  not  take  so  much  interest 
in  such  subjects  as  they  take  in  facts  ob- 
tained at  first  hand,  or  in  arguments 
which  they  have  themselves  thought 
out.  They  may  attain  unity;  but  it 
will  be  a  unity  in  form  rather  than  in 
substance,  the  unity  of  a  manufactured 
article,  not  that  of  a  natural  product. 


52  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Subjects  should  be  concrete  as  well  as 
definite,  and  should  be  adapted  to  the  age 
and  experience  of  those  who  are  to  write 
upon  them.  A  teacher  should  be  so  well 
acquainted  with  the  minds  of  his  pupils 
that  he  knows  what  interests  or  can  be 
made  to  interest  them,  and  should  choose 
his  subjects  in  the  light  of  that  knowl- 
edge, being  careful,  at  the  same  time,  to 
confine  each  topic  within  narrow  limits. 
If  a  boy  has  been  greatly  interested  in 
an  industrial  exhibition,  he  may  be  asked 
to  give,  not  a  general  account  of  the 
show, —  a  demand  which  would  result 
either  in  a  flight  of  superlatives  or  in  a 
reproduction  of  the  catalogue, — but  a 
full  and  precise  account  of  one  thing  he 
has  seen,  of  the  latest  form  of  type- 
writer or  of  sewing-machine,  for  exam- 
ple. If  he  has  been  reading  Irving's 
"Sketch  Book"  with  pleasure,  he  may 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  53 

be  asked  to  compare  Christmas  as  he 
knows  it  in  his  own  home  with  Christ- 
mas as  it  used  to  be  in  England,  or  to 
tell  the  story  of  Kip  Van  Winkle  as  he 
would  tell  it  if  he  were  trying  to  amuse 
a  younger  brother.  What  Carlyle  wrote 
to  a  young  man  who  talked  of  writing 
a  criticism  on  Shakspere  will  hold  good 
in  the  case  of  every  boy  or  girl.  "  The 
thing,"  said  Carlyle,  "he  will  have  the 
chance  to  write  entertainingly  upon  will 
be  something  he  specially  himself  has 
seen,  not  probably  Shakspere,  I  should 
say,  which  all  the  world  these  two  cen- 
turies has  been  doing  its  best  to  see." 

The  essential  thing  in  the  subject  for  a 
boy's  composition  is  that  it  should  be  one 
which  his  mind  will  take  hold  of,  as  it 
takes  hold  of  a  game  of  ball  or  a  story- 
book. To  put  him  at  his  ease,  he  may 
at  first  be  required  to  write  in  his  own 


54  OUR  ENGLISH. 

words  the  substance  of  something  read 
or  told  to  him,  or  he  may  be  allowed  to 
dictate  his  compositions;  for  as  a  rule 
he  is  more  natural  when  speaking  than 
when  writing,  keeps  to  the  point  more 
closely,  and  gets  along  more  rapidly. 

Next  in  importance  among  the  quali- 
ties which  a  teacher  should  strive  to  in- 
fuse into  the  writings  of  his  pupils  is  that 
known  in  the  text-books  under  different 
names  (as  flow,  ease,  elegance,  beauty, 
music,  harmony,  euphony,  smoothness), 
the  quality  which  renders  written  words 
agreeable  to  the  ear  and  the  taste,  the 
quality  which  is  possessed  in  a  pre-emi- 
nent degree  by  Addison  and  Goldsmith 
among  the  dead,  and  by  Cardinal  New- 
man and  Mr.  Ruskiu  among  the  living. 
This  excellence  may  be  purchased — as 
it  is  in  some  of  the  histories  of  Irving  or 
of  Prescott — at  the  cost  of  brevity  and 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  55 

vigor.  Its  absence  may  be  made  up  for 
(with  some  readers  at  least)  by  pict- 
uresqueness  and  strength,  as  in  Carlyle's 
"  Latter-Day  Pamphlets ;"  but  even  those 
papers  are  bard  reading  for  many  on  ac- 
count of  their  deficiencies  in  this  respect. 
Similar  deficiencies,  unrelieved  by  equal 
merits,  greatly  diminish  one's  pleasure 
in  reading;  some  of  the  works  of  Sir  Ar- 

O 

thur  Helps;  and  they  are  fatal  to  the 
perusal  of  many  books  of  science  by  any 
one  but  a  specialist. 

I  will  not  say  that  the  text-books  on 
rhetoric  ought  to  give  more  space  than 
they  do  to  this  element  of  a  good  style : 
for,  even  if  it  were  possible,  it  would  in 
many  cases  be  inexpedient  to  train  the 
ear  by  precepts;  were  euphony  insisted 
on,  young  writers  might  be  tempted  to 
sacrifice  force  to  elegance,  sense  to  sound. 
The  teacher  of  English  should,  however, 

O  /  / 


56  OUR  ENGLISH. 

recommend  novices  in  composition  to 
read  authors  distinguished  for  a  flowing 
style,  and  should  call  their  attention  to 
chosen  examples  of  the  best  work  of 
such  authors.  He  should  point  out  to 
his  pupils  passages  in  their  own  com- 
positions that  are  obscure  or  ineffective, 
because  of  clumsiness  in  a  form  of  ex- 
pression, or  want  of  ease  in  a  transition, 
or  inharmoniousness  in  the  collocation 
of  words.  A  young  writer  should  be 
made  to  understand  that,  to  have  unity 
in  the  fullest  sense,  an  essay  must  have 
movement  as  well  as  method,  and  that 
any  interruption  in  the  flow  of  language 
is  a  source  of  difficulty  and  of  irritation 
to  the  reader,  since  it  calls  his  attention 
from  the  meaning  of  a  sentence  to  the 
words  which  compose  it,  or  from  the  line 
of  thought  in  a  paragraph  to  the  parti- 
cles which  fasten  the  sentences  together. 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  57 

Pupils  should  be  taught  that,  to  be 
sure  of  having  movement  in  their  com- 

O 

positions,  they  must  have  it  in  them- 
selves. A  writer  who  stops  at  the  end 
of  every  sentence  to  bite  his  pen,  or  to 
stare  at  the  ceiling,  or  to  talk  with  a  vis- 
itor, will  never  acquire  a  flowing  style. 
He  who  is  not  interested  in  his  own 
work  has  small  chance  of  interesting 
others;  he  who  keeps  interrupting  him- 
self can  hardly  expect  that  his  readers 
will  find  continuity  in  what  he  has  writ- 
ten. 

Before  sitting  down  to  write,  a  boy 
should  have  thought  out  what  he  has  to 

O 

say,  and  should  have  arranged  it  in  an 
orderly  manner,  so  that  there  shall  be  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end ;  when 
he  does  sit  down  at  his  desk,  he  can  and 
he  should  write  at  a  heat.  Then,  if 
ever,  words  will  follow  words,  and  sen- 


58  OUR  ENGLISH. 

tences  sentences,  and  paragraphs  para- 
graphs, naturally  and  with  ease.  If  be- 
tween a  first  draught  thus  produced — 
after  thought  and  with  speed — and  the 
finished  composition,  sufficient  time  shall 
elapse  to  enable  him  to  forget  a  large 
part  of  what  he  has  written,  so  much 
the  better;  for  he  will  then  approach 
his  work  like  a  stranger,  and  will  see,  as 
a  stranger  would  see,  where  he  has  failed 
to  express  clearly  or  vigorously  what 
he  has  tried  to  say.  Lapse  of  time  and 
change  of  mood  are  excellent  critics. 

Finally,  the  teacher  of  English  compo- 
sition should  give  to  each  of  his  pupils 
enough  but  not  too  much  help,  should 
be  to  each  a  staff,  not  a  crutch.  To  cor- 
rect every  error  is  almost  as  bad  as  to 
make  no  corrections  at  all.  The  teacher 
should  point  out  faults,  but  the  scholar 
should  be  encouraged  to  find  remedies 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  59 

himself.  Prevailing  dements  should  be 
noted,  and  prevailing  merits  also,  if  there 
be  any.  In  many  cases  it  will  be  found 
that  a  thorough  change  for  the  better 
cannot  be  made  without  the  recasting 
of  the  whole  composition  :  and  this  will 
be  a  useful  exercise  for  all,  and  most 
useful  to  the  best  writers  in  the  class; 
for  to  them  no  part  of  the  work  will  be 
a  mere  copyist's  drudgery,  but  all  will 
help  to  train  them  in  the  effective  use  of 
language,  as  such  work  has  always  helped 
men  who  have  taught  themselves  to  write 
or  have  been  taught  by  good  teachers. 

Another  plan  is  that  of  Coleridge's 
master — a  plan  which  that  great  writer 
regards  as  "imitable  and  worthy  of  imita- 
tion." "  He  would,"  says  Coleridge,  "often 
permit  our  exercises,  under  some  pretext 
of  want  of  time,  to  accumulate  till  each 
lad  had  four  or  five  to  be  looked  over. 


60  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Then  placing  the  whole  number  abreast 
on  his  desk,  he  would  ask  the  writer 
why  this  or  that  sentence  might  not 
have  found  as  appropriate  a  place  under 
this  or  that  other  thesis ;  and  if  no  sat- 
isfying answer  could  be  returned,  and 
two  faults  of  the  same  kind  were  found 
in  one  exercise,  the  irrevocable  verdict 
followed,  the  exercise  was  torn  up,  and 
another  on  the  same  subject  [had]  to  be 
produced,  in  addition  to  the  tasks  of  the 
day." 

It  is  evident  from  what  I  have  said  all 
alone:  that  I  am  no  believer  in  the  doc- 

O 

trine  that  a  good  book  or  a  good  essay 
can  be  written  by  one  who  has  nothing 
to  say,  or  that,  in  English  composition, 
form  is  one  thing  and  substance  another. 
Even  if  it  were  true  that  words  are  the 
clothing  of  thought,  it  would  follow  that 

O  O         ' 

words    without   thought,  however    skil- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  61 

fully  knit  together,  however  richly  em- 
broidered with  figures  of  speech,  must 
still  bear  the  same  relation  to  words 
with  thought  that  an  ingeniously  con- 
structed scarecrow  bears  to  the  farmer 
who  made  it.  In  the  best  writers,  how- 
ever, words  are  not  the  clothing  of 
thought :  they  are  thought  incarnate ; 
the  language  and  the  idea  are  united, 
like  soul  and  body,  in  a  mysterious  way 
which  nobody  fully  understands.  More 
than  this.  In  a  great  writer  the  style 
is  the  man — the  man  as  made  by  his  an- 
cestors, his  education,  his  career,  his  cir- 
cumstances, and  his  genius. 

It  is  idle,  then,  to  attempt  to  secure  a 
good  style  by  imitating  this  or  that 
writer ;  for  the  best  part  of  a  good 
style  is  incommunicable.  An  imitator 
may,  if  he  applies  himself  closely  to 
the  task,  catch  mannerisms  and  repro- 


62  OUR  ENGLISH. 

duce  defects,  and  perhaps  superficial 
merits;  but  the  most  valuable  qualities, 
those  that  have  their  roots  in  character, 
he  will  miss  altogether,  except  in  so  far 
as  his  own  personality  resembles  that  of 
his  model.  It  has  been  found  compar- 
atively easy,  for  instance,  to  copy  the  big 
words,  the  antitheses,  the  balanced  sen- 
tences of  Dr.  Johnson  ;  but  who  has  his 
sense  and  his  vigor?  Carlyle's  uncouth- 
ness  has  been  caught;  but  who  has  his 
imagination,  his  humor,  his  strength  ? 
Macaulay's  clearness,  Goldsmith's  ease, 
Webster's  massiveness,  is  precisely  that 
thing  in  each  which  it  is  most  difficult 
to  acquire. 

One  may,  however,  get  good  from  a 
master  of  English  by  unconscious  ab- 
sorption, as  one  acquires  good-manners 
by  associating  with  gentlemen  and  la- 
dies; and  there  are  minds  which  are 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  63 

so  thoroughly  original  that  they  assim- 
ilate from  another's  writings  that,  and 

O  ' 

that  only,  which  is  helpful  to  them.  A 
writer  of  this  class  does  not  copy  the 
style  of  the  author  he  has  been  study- 
ing, but  he  reproduces  that  style  com- 
bined with  something  new,  so  as  to  form 
an  original  product.  Thus  Keats  prof- 
ited by  his  study  of  Spenser  and  of  Mil- 
ton. Thus  Demosthenes,  after  copying 
and  recopying  Thucydides,  wrote,  not  in 
the  style  of  Thucydides,  but  in  a  style  of 
his  own.  Thus  Franklin  educated  him- 
self by  a  study  of  Addison,  rewriting  the 
best  papers  in  The  Spectator  from  mem- 
ory, and  then  comparing  his  transcripts 
with  the  originals;  but  Franklin's  style, 
though  resembling  Addison's  in  some 
respects,  is  instinct  with  Franklin's  own 
personality. 

A  teacher  cannot  be  expected  to  find 


64:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

many  excellent  writers  among  the  chil- 
dren that  pass  through  his  hands;  but 
he  may  do  much  for  his  pupils  by  help- 
ing them  to  see  in  their  own  composi- 
tions, not  only  how  far  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  securing  unity  in  structure 
and  ease  in  expression,  but  also  how 
far  they  have  succeeded  in  putting 
their  individuality  into  their  written 
words. 

Not  that  one  young  person  in  ten 
thousand  has  anything  original  to  say; 
but  every  human  being  has  a  mind  of 
his  own,  as  he  has  features  of  his  own, — 
a  mind  which  expresses  itself  readily 
enousrh  in  his  face  and  in  familiar  con- 

O 

versation,  and  which  can  be  helped  to 
express  itself  with  the  pen.  To  the  ex- 
tent that  a  young  writer  means  to  say 
something  of  his  own,  what  he  writes 
will  have  freshness,  and  will  inspire  in- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  65 

terest  in  his  subject  and  in  him.  To  the 
extent  that  he  fails  to  put  himself  into 
his  work,  he  becomes  what  is  known  as 
a  hack  writer,  a  mere  beast  of  burden, 
that  serves  as  a  common  carrier  for  the 
thoughts  of  other  men. 

Thus  far  I  have  dwelt  upon  the  study 
of  English  as  a  means  of  facilitating  com- 
munication between  mind  and  mind, 
and  it  is  under  this  aspect  alone  that  I 
feel  justified  in  demanding  a  pre-eminent 
place  for  the  study  in  every  school,  what- 
ever its  other  studies,  whatever  its  grade, 
whatever  its  system  of  education. 

I  should  be  the  last  to  deny  the  pleas- 
ures or  the  advantages  of  the  study  of 
English  from  the  philological  or  from  the 
literary  point  of  view.  Few  pursuits  are 
more  attractive  to  an  intelligent  youth 
than  that  of  tracing  a  word  through  all 
5 


66  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  stages  of  its  growth  back  to  the  root 
out  of  which  so  much  and  so  many  things 
have  been  developed.  To  master  the 
languages  from  which  our  own  has  been 
formed  is  to  add  to  our  knowledge  of 
history,  and  to  enable  us  to  appreciate 
more  highly  the  beauty  and  the  power 
of  the  stream  which  we  have  traced  to  its 
source.  If  pursued  in  this  spirit,  the 
study  of  English  as  a  language  may  be 
of  great  value,  both  because  it  supplies 
valuable  information,  and  because  it 
broadens  the  mind  and  stimulates  the 
imagination ;  but  it  would  be  hard  to 
prove  that,  on  the  whole,  English  in  this 
sense  has  stronger  claims  upon  a  stu- 
dent's attention  than  Greek  or  Latin, 
French  or  German,  Sanskrit  or  Hebrew. 
A  stronger  case  may  be  made  for  the 
study  of  English  literature  as  such.  It 
is  unseemly  that  anybody  (except,  per- 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  67 

haps,  a  professor  of  Greek),  should  know 
Homer  better  than  Shakspere,  Lucian 
than  Swift,  Demosthenes  than  Burke. 
Whatever  else  may  be  omitted,  every 
scholar  who  gets  beyond  the  three  R's 
should  know  something  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish classics  at  first  hand, — a  study  very 
different  from  "English  literature"  as 
presented  in  manuals  made  up  of  short 
extracts  and  loaded  down  with  superflu- 
ous commentaries,  annotations,  criticisms, 
with  talk  about  books,  which  rises  like  a 
cloud  between  them  and  the  student, 
irritating  him  as  well  as  obstructing  the 
view.  Better  leave  boys  to  read  good 
books  by  themselves  than  impose  on 
them  as  a  task  an  author  whom  they 
might  enjoy  if  presented  in  the  right 
way,  but  whom  they  are  likely  to  detest 
if  they  see  him  only  when  he  is  pinned 
to  the  floor  of  the  school  -  room,  like 


68  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Gulliver  in   the    hands   of  the  Lillipu- 
tians. 

In  this  matter  the  only  suggestions  I 
have  space  for  are  three:  First,  every 
book  chosen  for  reading  should  be  suit- 
ed to  a  scholar's  age,  attainments,  and 
tastes,  should  be  a  book  that  he  is  like- 
ly to  enjoy.  Secondly,  he  should  be  en- 
couraged to  read  every  work  through 
twice, — the  first  time  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible, that  he  may  get  the  knowledge  and 
the  pleasure  of  it  as  a  whole;  the  sec- 
ond time  with  some  attention  to  details. 
Thirdly,  in  order  to  bring  his  mind  to 
bear  on  what  he  has  read,  he  should 
write  on  at  least  two  subjects  drawn 
from  the  book, — the  first  calling  for  a 
general  summary  of  its  contents  from  a 
single  point  of  view,  the  second  calling 
for  an  intelligent  account  of  one  scene  or 
character. 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  69 

Whether,  as  mere  matter  of  knowledge, 
the  masterpieces  of  English  literature 
should  constitute  a  part  of  the  education 
of  every  child  who  goes  beyond  the  pri- 
mary school,  I  will  not  undertake  to  say ; 
but  I  do  regard  an  acquaintance  with  the 
English  classics  as  important  if  not  in- 
dispensable to  a  young  writer  who  is 
striving  to  master  the  art  of  expres- 
sion. This  purpose  good  authors  serve, 
not  only  directly  by  providing  suitable 
topics  to  be  written  on,  and  by  increas- 
ing one's  command  of  language,  but  also 
indirectly  by  stimulating  the  mental  en- 
ergies, and  by  affording  a  keen  intellect- 
ual pleasure.  Thus  understood,  Eng- 
lish literature  ceases  to  be  a  merely  lit- 
erary study,  and  becomes  as  useful  to 
the  man  of  science  as  to  the  man  of  let- 
ters— to  Professor  Huxley  and  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer  as  to  Mr.  Ruskin  and  Mr. 


70  OUR  ENGLISH. 

James  Russell  Lowell.  Literature  is  no 
longer  a  fund  of  information  which  may 
he  weighed  against  information  on  other 

O  O 

subjects,  but  it  belongs  to  that  kind  of 
knowledge  which  is  power. 

The  primary  object,  then,  of  placing 
English  upon  a  better  basis  in  the  schools, 
and  of  giving  more  time  and  intelligence 
to  it  there,  is  to  enable  boys  and  girls 
to  express  themselves  in  pure  and  effect- 
ive language :  not  merely  that  they  may 
avoid  gross  mistakes  in  grammar  and 
ambiguous  or  obscure  expressions,  not 
merely  that  they  may  state  facts  or  opin- 
ions in  words  that  can  be  understood  by 
one  who  takes  pains  to  understand  them; 
but  that,  in  course  of  time,  they  may  tell 
a  story  or  frame  an  argument  so  well 
that  he  who  runs  will  stop  to  read  it, 
and  that  they  may  be  able,  the  best  of 
them  at  least,  not  only  to  instruct  men, 


ENGLISH  IN  SCHOOLS.  71 

but  also  to  please  them  in  the  highest 
sense,  and  to  move  them  to  noble  ends. 
It  may  be  years  before  the  full  effects 
of  the  reform  will  appear ;  but  then  they 
will  be  felt  in  all  the  fields  of  human 
activity  in  which  English  plays  a  leading 
part. 


II. 

ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES. 


IN  most,  if  not  all,  American  colleges, 
the  teaching  of  English  stands  better 
than  it  did  ten  years  ago.  English  is 
no  longer  looked  down  upon,  no  longer 
deemed  unworthy  to  be  on  the  same 
footing  with  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathe- 
matics. It  is  recognized  as  forming,  and 
as  deserving  to  form,  an  important  part 
of  the  higher  education ;  and  this  recog- 
nition has  stimulated  teachers  already  in 
the  profession  to  better  work,  and  has 
recruited  their  ranks  with  young  men 
and  women  of  ability  and  enthusiasm. 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  73 

In  some  shape,  English  now  has  an 
honored  place  in  every  institution  which 
is,  or  pretends  to  be,  a  college  or  a  uni- 
versity ;  but  in  this  curriculum  it  means 
one  thing,  in  that  another.  Some  insti- 
tutions class  English  with  French  and 
German,  Italian  and  Spanish,  under  the 
head  of  modern  languages;  and  the  advo- 
cates of  the  study  in  this  sense  are  fond 
of  pitting  the  modern  languages  against 
the  ancient  ones,  or  of  using  English 
alone  as  a  weapon  to  brain  Greek  with. 
Some  institutions  require  all  their  stu- 
dents to  give  many  hours  to  Anglo- 
Saxon,  apparently  on  the  ground  that 
the  earlier  the  English  the  purer  and  the 
better  worth  knowing  it  is,  and  the  more 
barren  the  literature  the  less  the  prob- 
ability that  a  student  will  be  diverted 
by  some  literary  ignis  fatuus  from  the 
study  of  the  forms  of  words.  Others, 


74  OUR  ENGLISH. 

which  do  not  take  this  extreme  view, 
neglect  every  English  author  since  Shak- 
spere,  as  if  he  were  the  latest  one  worth 
studying;  or  they  devote  themselves  to 
Mr.  Browning,  as  to  the  Shakspere  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  There  are  teach- 
ers who  identify  English  with  rhetoric 
taught  as  a  science, — that  is,  as  matter 
of  knowledge  valuable,  not  for  the  use 
to  l}e  made  of  it,  but  for  its  own  sake; 
others  identify  it  with  rhetoric  taught 
as  an  art  composed  of  certain  princi- 
ples, which  they  strive  to  apply  to  the 
essays  of  their  pupils ;  others  content 
themselves  with  demanding  a  large  num- 
ber of  essays  from  each  student,  but 
make  no  provision  for  the  study  of  prin- 
ciples, whether  as  formulated  in  a  text- 
book on  rhetoric  or  as  embodied  in  lit- 
erature ;  and  there  are  some  who  treat 
"forensic  disputation,"  or  even  "ora- 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  75 

tory,"  "  vocal  expression,"  as  the  English 
most  important  to  know. 

"  In  each  of  these  fields  admirable  work 
has  been  done,  no  doubt;  but  to  get  the 
o-ood  of  it  all,  an  enthusiastic  student  of 

O  ' 

English  would  have  to  betake  himself 

O 

to  several  centres  of  intellectual  life.  No 
college  in  the  country,  so  far  as  I  know, 
gives  instruction  on  all  matters  included 
in  the  study  of  English  in  its  widest 
sense.  None  provides  the  requisite  fa- 
cilities for  a  student  who  desires  to  mas- 
ter his  mother-tongue  in  its  history  as  a 
language,  in  its  completeness  as  a  litera- 
ture, and  in  its  full  scope  as  a  means 
of  expression  with  the  pen  and  the 
lips.  This  state  of  things  is  not,  and  has 
not  been  for  many  years,  the  case  with 
Greek,  Latin,  or  mathematics.  It  is  no 
longer  the  case  with  some  branches  of 
natural  science,  or  with  at  least  two  of 


76  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  modem  languages.  Why  should  it 
be  so  with  English  ?  Why  should  a  man 
who  wishes  to  know  all  that  is  to  be 
known  about  the  language  he  is  going 
to  use  all  his  life,  be  at  a  disadvantage 
in  the  pursuit  of  his  favorite  species  of 
knowledge,  as  compared  with  him  whose 
tastes  lead  him  to  regions  which  only  a 
few  specialists  care  to  enter  ? 

The  question  answers  itself.  There  is 
every  reason  why  every  college  in  the 
country  should  do  for  the  mother-tongue 
all  that  it  does  for  its  most  favored 
studies;  and  the  time  will  come,  or  I 
greatly  misread  the  signs  of  the  future, 
when  no  American  institution  of  learn- 
ing can  afford  to  economize  in  the  mat- 
ter of  English.  Now  that  learned  men 
and  learned  bodies,  like  clergymen  and 
churches,  are  no  longer  too  far  above 
the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  subjected  to 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  77 

the  same  tests  to  which  other  men  and 
other  bodies  are  %  subjected,  and  to  be 
criticised  with  equal  freedom,  they  must 
cease  to  devote  the  resources  supplied 
by  public  or  by  private  beneficence  to 
the  nourishment  of  hobby-horses  whose 
bones  are  marrowless,  in  whose  eyes 
there  is  either  no  speculation  in  the  old 
sense  of  that  word,  or  too  much  spec- 
ulation in  the  modern  sense.  A  college 
which  is  to  live  by  the  people  must 
supply  the  education  needed  for  the  peo- 
ple, and  for  the  leaders  of  the  people ; 
and  what  is  so  much  needed  as  English? 
In  these  days  of  multifarious  knowledge, 
of  intellectual  activity  in  so  many  direc- 
tions, there  are  things  of  which  a  man 
need  know  the  rudiments  only:  but  of 
English  an  educated  man  should  know 
more  than  the  rudiments,  because — if  for 
no  other  reason  —  everybody  knows,  or 


78  OUR  ENGLISH. 

half -knows,  or  thinks  he  knows  them; 
because  everybody  deems  himself  capa- 
ble, not  only  of  criticising  the  English 
of  others,  but  also  of  writing  good  Eng- 
lish himself.  Therefore,  educated  men 
should  arm  themselves  at  all  points 
against  the  numerous  foes  that  beset 
pure  English  on  every  side,  in  these  days 
of  free  speech  and  a  free  press.  No- 
blesse oblige.  Superior  advantages  bind 
those  who  have  enjoyed  them  to  superior 
achievement  in  the  things  in  which  self- 
taught  men  are  their  competitors,  as  well 
as  in  the  work  of  scholarship. 

Taking  for  granted,  then,  that  English 
should  form  an  important  part  of  every 
college  curriculum,  and  should  be  a  pre- 
scribed study  for  all  students  in  every 
college  in  which  any  subject  is  prescribed, 
we  have  still  to  ask  whether  the  objec- 
tive point  towards  which  the  work  as  a 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  79 

whole  ought  to  tend,  should  be  English 
as  language,  English  as  literature,  or  Eng- 
lish as  a  means  of  communication  between 
man  and  man.  Not  that  it  is  either  prac- 
ticable or  desirable  to  teach  English  in 
one  sense  without  teaching  it  in  the  oth- 
er senses  also.  Students  of  a  language 
cannot  go  far  without  taking  up  the  lit- 
erature in  which  that  language  finds  its 
most  characteristic  expression  ;  students 
of  a  literature  cannot  fail  to  note  some 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  language  it  is 
written  in,  and  are  likely  to  have  some 
curiosity  as  to  points  in  the  history  and 
development  of  language  in  general;  stu- 
dents of  the  art  of  composition  will  be 
greatly  helped  in  their  work  if  they  know 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  words,  and  are 
familiar  with  the  classics,  of  their  native 
tongue;  and  students,  whether  of  lan- 
guage or  of  literature,  can  do  little  with 


80  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  results  of  their  labors,  unless  they 
are  able  to  communicate  them  to  others 
clearly  and  effectively. 

What,  however,  should  be  the  primary 
aim  in  a  course  of  study  framed  to  sup- 
ply the  needs,  not  of  specialists,  but  of 
the  main  body  of  students  ?  Should  the 
purpose  be  to  make  them  know  English 
as  philologists  know  it?  or  as  literary 
historians  and  critics  know  it  ?  or  as  it 
is  known  by  those  who  say  what  they 
wish  to  say,  whether  in  speech  or  in 
writing,  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  per- 
sons addressed  shall  readily  and  fully 
and  exactly  understand  what  is  meant, 
and  shall  see  as  vividly  that  which  speak- 
er or  writer  desires  them  to  see,  follow  a 
narrative  or  a  piece  of  reasoning  as  close- 
ly, and  feel  the  force  of  argument  or  of 
emotion  as  strongly  and  deeply,  as  it  is 
within  the  power  of  language  to  effect? 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  81 

Can  there  be  any  doubt  on  this  ques- 
tion in  the  mind  of  anybody  who  looks 
at  it  with  unprejudiced  eyes — the  ques- 
tion, it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  relating 
to  prescribed  studies  solely?  Every 
student  who  chooses  to  pursue  the  his- 
tory of  the  English  language  as  far  back 
as  books  will  take  him,  and  every  stu- 
dent who  chooses  to  devote  his  whole 
time  to  the  study  of  English  literature, 
whether  in  its  general  outlines  or  in  its 
minutest  details,  should  have  all  the  op- 
portunities and  all  the  facilities  for 
his  specialty  that  his  college  can  sup- 
ply. In  optional  studies  there  should 
be  no  discrimination,  no  favoritism ;  so 
far  as  possible,  every  reasonable  demand 
for  instruction  in  any  subject  should  be 
granted :  but  a  prescribed  curriculum, 
which  is  necessarily  limited  on  every  side, 
should  comprise  those  subjects  only  which 
6 


82  OUR  ENGLISH. 

furnish  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest 
number. 

Among  those  subjects  the  art  of  com- 
position should  surely  be  included,  rath- 
er than  philology  or  literary  history,  or 
even  literature  except  so  far  as  it  serves 
to  stimulate  the  powers  of  production, 
and  to  turn  them  in  the  right  direction. 

O 

Rhetoric  may  be  prescribed,  not  for  its 
own  sake,  but  as  one  of  the  means  by 
which  a  student  is  taught  to  write. 
Knowledge  of  the  principles  of  the  art 
of  composition,  as  applied  by  the  best 
writers,  ought  to  help  a  student  to  com- 
municate what  he  has  to  say  in  a  bet- 
ter form  than  he  would  otherwise  em- 
ploy. By  the  shortcomings  of  others  he 
should  learn  what  to  avoid,  and  by  their 
achievements  what  to  seek,  in  his  own 
compositions.  What  the  text-book  helps 
him  to  do  consciously,  familiarity  with 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  83 

superior  writers  ought  to  help  him  to  do 
unconsciously.  Surrendering  himself  to 
the  influence  of  genius,  he  will  be  carried 
beyond  himself,  his  mind  will  work  more 
freely  than  usual,  and  his  sentences  will 
reproduce  his  thoughts  in  more  perspicu- 
ous and  more  telling  language.  No  mind 
can  fail  to  be  stimulated  by  contact  with 
greater  minds,  whether  living  or  dead. 
Shakspere,  Bacon,  Burke,  George  Eliot, 
Cardinal  Newman,  feed  the  powers  of 
thought  and  the  powers  of  expression  at 
the  same  time,  and  thus  enable  one  to 
thinkf  to  talk,  and  to  write  to  more  pur- 
pose. 

If,  then,  we  may  assume  that  English  in 
the  form  of  English  composition  should 
be  a  prescribed  subject  in  every  college 
curriculum  in  which  -any  subject  is  pre- 
scribed, we  have  next  to  consider  what 
may  and  what  may  not  be  profitably 


84  OUR  ENGLISH. 

done  by  a  teacher  of  this  onerous  and 
often  thankless  subject.  On  this  matter 
two  extreme  theories  are  held :  one,  that 
a  teacher  can  do  nothing ;  the  other,  that 
a  teacher  can  do  everything. 

According  to  the  do-nothing  school, 
"  To  learn  .how  to  write,  you  have  only 
to  write;"  "When  you  have  something 
to  say,  you  will  be  able  to  say  it  well 
enough ;"  "A  clear  thinker  will  be  a 
clear  writer,  a  forcible  thinker  a  forcible 
writer;"  and  s"o  on.  Those  who  favor 
this  view  admit,  indeed,  that  an  intelli- 
gent critic  may  uproot  faults  ofr  style, 
repress  bad  tendencies,  smooth  rough 
places;  but  they  add  that  he  is  likely 
to  kill  the  wheat  with  the  tares,  to  dis- 
courage inclinations  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, to  cultivate  elegance  at  the  cost  of 
strength,  and,  above  all,  to  make  a  young 
writer  self-conscious,  self -critical,  and, 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  85 

therefore,  more  and  more  artificial, — tlie 
effort  to  follow  rules  and  avoid  faults 
depriving  him  of  the  inspiration  and  the 
guidance  that  would  otherwise  have  been 
furnished  by  his  own  healthy,  natural 
self.  They  declare  that  under  such  dis- 
cipline an  original  writer,  or  one  who 
might  Lave  become  such  if  left  to  him- 
self, is  reduced  almost  to  the  level  of  an 
accomplished  proof-reader.  They  point 
to  authors  of  acknowledged  merit  who 
never  received  any  instruction  in  Eng- 
lish composition,  and  to  youths  whose 
written  work  in  college  was  rated  very 
low,  but  who  soon  after  leaving  college 
showed  that  they  could  express  them- 
selves so  well  as  to  command  attention 
to  what  they  wrote  on  subjects  with 
which  they  were  familiar  and  in  which 
they  took  a  living  interest. 

In  this  view  there  is,  no  doubt,  a  ker- 


86  OUR  ENGLISH. 

nel  of  truth.  Bad  instruction  is  worse 
than  none.  A  teacher  who  confines  his 
efforts  to  the  eradication  of  faults  is 
likely  to  do  more  harm  by  discourage- 
ment than  he  does  good  by  emendation : 
but  the  wise  teacher  will  constantly  en- 
deavor to  make  the  soil  he  cultivates 
as  productive  as  possible,  taking  pains 
all  the  time  to  quicken  the  good  seed, 
and  to  help  his  pupils  to  understand 
that  weeds  are  removed,  not  so  much 
because  they  are  weeds  as  because  they 
choke  the  wheat.  Even  such  a  teacher 
may  at  first  seem  to  be  doing  more  harm 
than  good  to  his  pupils;  for  a  novice 
has  to  pass  through  a  period  of  transi- 
tion, during  which,  like  a  boy  who  has 
taken  half  a  dozen  lessons  in  dancing, 
he  is  awkwardly  conscious  of  his  short- 
comings, but  does  not  know  how  to  im- 

O     ' 

prove.      In    a    few    weeks,   however,  a 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  87 

teacher  who  combines  tact  with  com- 
mon-sense wrill  be  able  to  do  for  his 
pupils,  or  rather  to  help  them  to  do  for 
themselves,  what  great  writers  who  had 
no  instructors  did  for  themselves;  and 
the  young  men  under  him  need  not  wait 
till  they  get  out  of  college  before  writing 
good  English. 

The  do-everything  school,  on  the  other 
hand,  talk  as  if  it  were  the  duty  of  an 
instructor  in  English  composition,  not 
merely  to  help  a  pupil  to  make  wThat  he 
has  to  say  tell  for  all  it  is  worth,  but 
also  to  supply  him  with  something  worth 
saying;  not  only,  if  I  may  use  the  ex- 
pression, to  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a 
sow's  ear,  but  to  fill  it  with  gold  fresh 
from  the  mint.  Some  who  do  not  go 
quite  to  this  length  in  their  demands 
upon  the  teacher  of  English,  neverthe- 
less do  expect  his  mill  to  produce  "fin- 


88  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ished  writers,"  whatever  may  have  been 
put  into  the  hopper.  "  Why,"  ask  the 
men  of  this  school,  "  why,  if  the  colleges 
do  their  duty,  have  we  so  few  great 
writers  in  this  country?  Why  are  so 
few  of  the  men  who  do  good  work  with 
the  pen  college-bred  ?  Surely  the  teach- 
ers of  English  either  slumber  at  their 
posts,  or 

" '  painful  vigils  keep, 
Sleepless  themselves  to  give  their  [pupils]  sleep.' " 

In  this  view  too,  there  is  a  kernel  of 
truth.  No  teacher  should  ignore  the 
fact  that  good  English  with  next  to 
nothing  behind  it  is  sounding  brass  or 
a  tinkling  cymbal  —  the  brass  of  loud- 
mouthed declaimers  or  the  tinkle  of  soft- 
mouthed  poetasters.  A  teacher  should 
make  his  pupils  understand  that  they 
must  think  before  writing,  must  have 
something  clearly  in  view  which  they 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  89 

are  to  put  into  language;  but  it  is  not 
his  business  as  teacher  of  composition 
to  provide  them  with  materials.  He 
may  do  so  if  he  will ;  but,  other  things 
being  equal,  young  writers  do  better 
with  topics  that  interested  them  before 
they  thought  of  writing  upon  them  than 
with  those  imposed  as  subjects  of  com- 
position, with  knowledge  gathered  as 
knowledge  rather  than  as  so  much  grist 
for  the  English  mill  So  far  as  possi- 
ble, a  teacher  should  open  the  eyes  of 
his  pupils  to  the  materials  at  their  com- 
mand, and  should  make  those  already  in 
their  possession  into  as  good  an  article 
as  possible.  If  the  materials  are  meagre, 
it  is  his  misfortune,  not  his  fault;  and  he 
will  make  a  poor  use  of  his  talents  if 
he  shows  young  men  how  to  hide  pov- 
erty of  thought  in  "finish"  of  style. 
In  my  judgment,  the  work  of  a  college 


90  OUR  ENGLISH. 

instructor  in  English  composition  is,  in- 
deed,  limited  in  range,  but  is  very  im- 
portant within  its  range.  All  that  is 
done  for  the  more  advanced  classes  in 
the  preparatory  schools  he  should  do, 
and  more;  for  with  the  maturing  facul- 
ties of  students  come  new  dangers  and 
difficulties  for  them,  and  new  duties  and 
responsibilities  for  their  teacher.  Though 
it  is  not  his  office  to  provide  his  pupils 
with  materials  for  thought,  he  may  well 
show  them  how  and  where  to  look  for 
materials,  how  to  test  them  when  found, 
how  to  choose  those  that  will  best  serve 
the  purpose  in  hand,  and  how  to  mar- 
shal them  for  service.  Though  it  is  not 
his  office  to  provide  his  pupils  with  ma- 
chinery for  thinking,  or  to  keep  what 
machinery  they  have  in  running  order, 
he  may  well  assist  them  to  use  their  tal- 
ents to  the  best  advantage. 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  91 

One  of  his  most  important  duties  is  to 
prevent  the  young  men  and  women  un- 
der his  eye  from  running  into  extremes. 
He  should  keep  them  in  the  difficult 
channel  between  the  Scylla  which  wrecks 
the  "used  up"  youth  who  says  of  life 
what  the  man  in  the  play  says  of  the 
crater  of  Vesuvius,  "there's  nothing  in 
it,"  and  the  Charybdis  which  boils  about 
the  hot  little  fellow  who  goes  at  the 
criticism  of  a  book  or  the  discussion 
of  a  controverted  question  with  —  if  I 
may  change  the  figure  —  a  warwhoop 
and  a  tomahawk.  He  should  discour- 
age his  pupils  from  announcing  plati- 
tudes as  if  they  were  oracles,  and  from 
apologizing  for  them  as  if  they  were  orig- 
inal sin ;  from  dealing  with  a  moral 

'  O 

question  either  as  if  they  had  long  ago 
lost  their  relish  for  cakes  and  ale,  or  as 
if  there  were  nothing  but  cakes  and  ale 

O 


92  OUR  ENGLISH. 

worth  living  for;  from  writing  stories 
that  strive  to  be  original,  and  succeed  in 
being  morbid  or  grotesque,  or  that  out- 
realist  modern  realists  in  the  trivialities 
they  photograph  and  in  their  ostenta- 
tious lack  of  plot  and  denouement  /  from 
the  extra -dry,  the  sweet,  the  still,  and 
the  sparkling  brands  of  dulness;  from 
poverty  of  language  and  of  imagination, 
and  from  heaping  words  upon  words 
until  what  passes  for  thought  has  been 
smothered,  or  metaphor  upon  metaphor 
until  one  cannot  find  the  idea,  if  idea 
there  be,  for  the  illustrations ;  from  arid 
metaphysical  subtleties,  and  vague  scien- 
tific or  religious  generalities,  from  ped- 
antry of  every  kind  and  vulgarity  of 
every  stripe. 

In  colleges,  as  in  schools,  however,  the 
main  business  of  the  teacher  of  English 
must  be  with  the  art  of  composition 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  93 

strictly  understood,  the  art  which  tells 
students  how  to  communicate  what  is  in 
their  heads  and  hearts  so  that  it  shall 
go  for  all  that  it  is  worth.  To  this  end 
he  should  strive,  in  the  first  place,  to 
stimulate  their  minds,  so  that  they  may 
put  forth  their  full  powers  when  they 
write,  and  put  them  forth  naturally  and 
with  the  force  of  their  individuality; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  he  should,  so 
far  as  in  him  lies,  remove  the  obstruc- 
tions which  ignorance,  half -knowledge, 
bad  training,  mannerism,  self-conscious- 
ness, imitation  of  poor  models,  the  thou- 
sand and  one  forces  that  fight  against 
good  English,  place  between  the  thought 
and  its  free  and  natural  expression. 

Over  some  of  these  obstacles  a  stu- 
dent's mental  energy  will,  if  roused  to 
its  full  power,  carry  him  by  its  own  mo- 
mentum ;  for,  as  every  one  knows,  a  writer 


94  OUR  ENGLISH. 

has  the  best  chance  of  saying  what  he 
means  to  say,  and  only  that,  if  he  is  ab- 
sorbed in  the  matter  of  what  he  is  writ- 
ing, and  gives  no  conscious  attention  to 
the  forms  of  words  or  the  construction 
of  sentences.  The  more  firmly  his  mind 
grasps  the  subject  in  hand,  and  the  more 
rapidly  his  train  of  thought  moves,  the 
more  probable  it  is  that  he  will  hit  upon 
the  best  words  and  the  best  arrange- 
ment of  words. 

If  a  teacher,  then,  is  able  to  interest 
his  pupils  in  what  they  are  writing  so 
deeply  that  they  put  their  best  selves 
into  the  work,  he  will  succeed,  not  only 
in  giving  to  it  continuity  and  individual- 
ity not  otherwise  to  be  attained,  but  also 
in  diminishing  the  number  of  errors  and 

O 

defects.  Those  which  remain  should  be 
dealt  with  firmly  but  considerately.  A 
student  should  be  made  to  feel  that  they 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  95 

are  removed  in  order  that  the  free  flow 
of  his  thought  may  be  unimpeded,  and 
that  they  are  of  no  account  as  compared 
with  lack  of  life  and  of  unity  in  the 
composition  as  a  whole. 

Every  teacher  will  decide  for  himself 
how  to  stimulate  his  pupils.  The  means 
are  as  various  as  the  conditions  of  life 
and  the  idiosyncrasies  of  human  nature. 
What  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison.  What  is  successful  with  a  small 
class  will  fail  with  a  large  one.  In  all 
cases,  and  under  all  conditions,  the  one 
thing  needful  is  that  the  teacher  should 
have  the  power  to  awaken  interest  and 
inspire  enthusiasm.  If  he  does  not  throw 
himself  into  his  work,  the  minds  of  his 
pupils  will  be  cold.  They  must  catcli 
fire  from  him. 

Under  the  most  favorable  conditions, 
the  results  of  English  composition  as 


96  OUR  ENGLISH. 

practised  in  college  are,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, discouraging.  The  shadow  of  gen- 
erations of  perfunctory  writers  seems  to 
rest  upon  the  paper,  and  only  here  and 
there  is  it  broken  by  a  ray  of  light  from 
the  present.  In  place  of  the  Sopho- 
moric  spirit  with  which  themes  were 
possessed  a  generation  ago,  the  spirit  of 
Indifference  seems  to  have  entered  into 
them.  Sometimes  the  ghosts  of  half-read 
books  or  of  half-heard  lectures  haunt  the 
dismal  pages.  Sometimes  the  spectre  of 
Pessimism,  stalking  through  a  student's 
mind,  lays  a  withered  hand  upon  his  pen, 
and  blasts  it  into  sterility,  or  scares  it 
into  hysterics.  I  know  of  no  language 
— ancient  or  modern,  civilized  or  savage 
— so  insufficient  for  the  purposes  of  lan- 
guage, so  dreary  and  inexpressive,  as 
theme-lansrua^e  in  the  mass.  How  two 

o        o 

or  three  hundred  young  men  who  seem 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  97 

to  be  really  alive  as  they  appear  in  the 
flesh  can  have  kept  themselves  entirely 
out  of  their  writing,  it  is  impossible  to 
understand — impossible  for  the  instruc- 
tor who  has  read  their  productions  by 
the  thousand,  or  for  the  graduate  who 
looks  at  his  own  compositions  ten  years 
after  leaving  college. 

Perhaps  the  most  potent  cause  of  this 
deplorable  state  of  things  has  been  the 
practice  of  forcing  young  men  to  write 
on  topics  of  which  they  know  nothing 
and  care  to  know  nothing — topics,  more- 
over, that  present  no  salient  point  for 
their  minds  to  take  hold  of.  An  im- 
provement (for  improvement  there  is) 
has  been  noticed  since  students  have  been 
given  greater  freedom  in  the  choice  of 
subjects,  have  been  told  to  choose  topics 
which  have  already  engaged  their  atten- 
tion, and  to  limit  and  define  the  topics 
7 


98  OUR  ENGLISH. 

they  choose  so  as  to  keep  themselves 
strictly  to  one  line  of  thought — whether 
in  discussing  a  proposition  clearly  stated, 
in  arraninnc'  facts  in  accordance  with 

O        O 

some  principle,  or  in  telling  a  story  or 
describing  a  scene  in  a  coherent  and 
vivid  manner. 

I  have  found,  too,  that  most  young 
men  do  better  under  pressure  than  when 
left  to  their  own  devices  as  to  time  and 
space.  Such,  at  least,  is  my  experience 
with  a  class  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  sen- 
iors and  juniors,  a  part  of  whose  regular 
work  consists  of  papers  a  page  long,  writ- 
ten in  the  class-room.  No  manuscript  is 
to  be  brought  in ;  but  students  are  ad- 
vised to  choose  their  subjects  beforehand, 
and  to  find  out  exactly  what  they  want 
to  say.  Any  subject  will  answer ;  but 
they  are  urged  to  avoid  the  common- 
place, the  bookish,  the  technical,  and  the 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  99 

profound,  and  to  choose  topics  which  can 
be  disposed  of  within  the  prescribed  lim- 
its. At  first,  "  Time  up  "  appears  at  the 
end  of  many  manuscripts,  the  writers 
having  undertaken  more  than  they  can 
accomplish  within  the  ten  minutes  al- 
lowed ;  but  experience  soon  shows  each 
man  what  can  and  what  cannot  be  put 
into  a  paragraph,  and  practice  gives  fa- 
cility in  composition.  Having  no  space 
for  prefaces  or  digressions  or  perorations, 
the  members  of  the  class  usually  begin 
at  the  beginning  and  go  straight  to  the 
end.  Having  no  time  to  be  affected,  they 
are  simple  and  natural.  Theme-language, 
which  still  haunts  too  many  of  their 
longer  essays,  rarely  appears  in  the  ten- 
minute  papers.  Free  from  faults  of  one 
kind  or  another  these  papers  are  not ; 
but  the  faults  are  such  as  would  be  com- 
mitted in  conversation  or  in  familiar  cor- 


100  OUR  ENGLISH. 

respondeuce.  The  great  point  has  been 
gained  that  the  writers,  as  a  rule,  forget 
themselves  in  what  they  are  saying ;  and 
the  time  will  come,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
when  they  will  be  correct  as  well  as  flu- 
ent, and  will  unite  vigor  with  well-bred 
ease,  and  clearness  in  thought  with  com- 
pactness in  expression. 

Teachers  of  English  composition, 
whether  they  have  or  have  not  had  an 
experience  like  that  which  I  have  de- 
tailed, must  all  have  seen  good  results 
follow  a  rigid  observance  of  rules  limit- 
ing essays  to  a  certain  number  of  pages, 
and  requiring  them  at  a  fixed  hour.  All 
must  have  seen  the  advantage  to  the  stu- 

O 

dent  of  making  him  feel  the  pressure  of 
a  force  outside  of  himself.  All  must 
know  too  that  such  pressure,  however 
useful  as  an  educational  expedient,  is  a 
poor  substitute  for  the  self-control  which 


ENGLISH  IN  COLLEGES.  101 

a  young  man  old  enough  to  be  iu  college 
should  exercise  in  the  matter  of  writing, 
as  in  other  things.  Undergraduates  are 
fond  of  talking  about  the  impossibility 
of  crowding  all  that  they  have  to  say 
into  a  prescribed  number  of  pages,  or 
of  getting  their  work  ready  at  the  pre- 
scribed time;  they  complain  of  what  they 
stigmatize  as  a  system  of  "  repression ;" 
they  are  sure  that  to  do  themselves  jus- 
tice they  must  wait  for  a  "mood,"  an 
"inspiration,"  and  must  give  it  free  course 
when  it  comes.  Sooner  or  later,  they  will 
discover  that  the  best  work  in  the  world 
is  done  under  conditions,  imposed  from 
without  or  self-imposed,  and  that  the 
best  writers  in  their  several  kinds — from 
Shakspere  to  a  successful  journalist — find 
the  conditions  under  which  they  labor  a 
help  rather  than  a  hinderance. 


III. 

ENGLISH   IN   NEWSPAPERS   AND 
NOVELS. 


"TiiE  best  rule  of  reading,"  says  Emer- 
son, "  will  be  a  method  from  nature,  and 
not  a  mechanical  one  of  hours  and  pages. 
It  holds  each  student  to  a  pursuit  of  his 
native  aim,  instead  of  a  desultory  mis- 
cellany. Let  him  read  what  is  proper 
to  him,  and  not  waste  his  memory  on  a 
crowd  of  mediocrities.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the 
human  mind  would  be  a  gainer  if  all 
the  secondary  writers  were  lost, —  say, 
in  England,  all  but  Shakspeare,  Milton, 
and  Bacon, —  through  the  profounder 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  103 

study  so  drawn  to  those  wonderful 
minds.  With  this  pilot  of  his  own  gen- 
ius, let  the  student  read  one,  or  let  him 
read  many,  he  will  read  advantageous- 
ly. ...  The  three  practical  rules,  then, 
which  I  have  to  offer  are :  1.  Never 
read  any  book  that  is  not  a  year  old. 

2.  Never   read    any  but   famed   books. 

3.  Never,  read  any  but  what  you  like; 
or,  in  Shakspeare's  phrase, 

'  No  profit  goes  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en : 
In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most  affect.'  " 

HOWT  few  of  us  live  up  to  the  last  of 
these  three  rules !  Books  which  we  do 
not  enjoy,  it  may  be  necessary  to  read 
for  an  ulterior  purpose;  but  how  many 
of  us  waste  time  upon  reading  that 
gives  neither  pleasure  nor  profit !  How 
many  dawdle  over .  books,  with  minds 
half  asleep,  in  a  half-hearted  effort  to  do 


104  OUR  ENGLISH. 

what,  for  no  sufficient  reason,  appears  to 
be  a  duty ! 

The  rule  never  to  read  a  book  that 
one  does  not  like  is,  then,  with  proper 
qualifications,  a  good  rule ;  but  what  of 
Emerson's  other  rules — to  read  no  book 
that  is  not  a  year  old,  and  to  read  none 
but  famed  books  ?  Who  confines  his 
reading  to  Shakspere,  Milton,  and  Bacon, 
as  Emerson  seems  to  advise?  Is  it,  on 
the  whole,  desirable  to  shut  our  eyes  to 
the  writings  that  record  the  events  and 

O 

mirror  the  life  of  to-day  ? 

The  bare  statement  of  these  questions, 
which  I  will  not  stop  to  discuss,  suggests 
some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  car- 
rying the  first  and  the  second  of  Emer- 
son's rules  into  practice.  What  great 
writer — not  to  speak  of  ordinary  men — 
ever  did  carry  them  into  practice  ?  Shak- 
spere, Bacon,  and  Milton,  at  any  rate, 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  105 

did  not  refuse  to  read  books  not  a 
year  old.  If  ever  men  knew  the  world, 
they  did.  Emerson  himself  may  or  may 
not  have  read  the  newspapers  with  his 
own  eyes,  but  he  certainly  read  them 
with  the  eyes  of  other  men :  he  frequent- 
ly freshened  his  mind  by  visits  to  the 
city,  and  by  conversation  which  drew 
him  into  the  currents  of  the  present. 

We  may,  then,  hesitate  to  accept  Emer- 
son's rules  in  the  form  in  which  he  states 
them ;  but  his  doctrine,  taken  as  a  whole, 
is  sound.  To  read  books  in  which  one 
takes  no  pleasure  is,  in  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases,  a  waste  of  time:  and  if, 
in  spite  of  continued  disgust,  the  prac- 
tice be  persisted  in,  it  is  likely  to  be- 
come worse  than  a  waste  of  time;  for 
it  tends  to  cramp  the  free  play  of  the 
mind,  and  to  make  reading  a  mechanical 
process  instead  of  a  life-giving  power. 


106  OUR  ENGLISH. 

To  read  nothing  but  newspapers  and 
second-rate  novels  is  to  waste  the  "  mem- 
ory on  a  crowd  of  mediocrities :"  and  it 
becomes  worse  than  a  waste  of  memory 
and  of  time  if  the  practice  be  persisted 
in,  without  an  effort  to  like  something 
better ;  for  such  reading  tends  to  weak- 
en the  powers  of  attention  and  of  con- 
centration, to  diminish,  if  not  to  destroy, 
freshness  of  thought  and  individuality 
of  expression,  and  to  relax  the  mental 
fibre. 

If  newspapers  and  novels  had  only  a 
general  effect  upon  a  reader's  mind, 
they  would  still  be  likely  to  injure  his 
English ;  but  they  have  a  direct  and 
specific  influence  upon  his  use  of  lan- 
guage,— an  influence  more  wide-spread, 
more  insidious,  and  more  harmful  than 
any  other;  and  this  is  especially  true 
in  the  United  States,  where  almost  every 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  107 

man  has  his  daily,  or,  at  least,  his  week- 
ly journal,  and  almost  every  woman 
spends  many  hours  on  current  fiction.* 

To  meet  the  enormous  demand,  a  host 
of  writers  have  entered  the  field,  who 
are  neither  by  nature  nor  by  education 
well  -  equipped  for  work  with  the  pen, 
but  who,  nevertheless,  earn  a  decent 
livelihood  in  this  calling,  as  they  would 
do  in  any  other  to  which  they  might 
turn  their  flexible  minds.  Even  writers 
who  have  literary  talent  but  lack  moral 
stamina  are  tempted  not  to  take  pains, 
because  they  perceive  that  bad  wares 
are  at  least  as  popular  as  good  ones. 

*  "  The  women,  in  fact,"  writes  Mr.  Ilowells, 
"are  the  miscellaneous  readers  in  our  country; 
they  make  or  leave  unmade  most  literary  reputa- 
tions ;  and  I  believe  that  it  is  usually  by  their  ad- 
vice when  their  work-worn  fathers  and  husbands 
turn  from  their  newspapers  to  the  doubtful  pleas- 
ure of  a  book." 


108  OUR  ENGLISH. 

"  It  seems  a  pity,"  said  a  gentleman 
the  other  day  to  the  proprietor  of  a 
daily  journal,  "  that  you  should  not  pub- 
lish more  intelligent  and  better-written 
notices  of  new  books." 

"Oh,  they're  as  good  as  our  readers 
want,"  was  the  answer. 

"  My  wife,"  said  another  gentleman  to 
the  editor  of  The  Evening  Muffin,  "  en- 
joys reading  your  paper." 

"I  should  be  better  pleased  to  hear 
that  your  cook  liked  it." 

Such  stories  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  some  American  journals  are  con- 
ducted on  principles  similar  to  those  to 
which  Mr.  Thomas  Frost  (in  "  Reminis- 
cences of  a  Country  Journalist,"  1886), 
ascribes  the  "growing  deterioration  of. 
journalistic  work"  in  England.  "The 
diffusion  of  elementary  education,"  says 
he,  "  which  flooded  mercantile  offices 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  109 

with  clerks  whose  qualifications  were  lim- 
ited to  the  ability  to  write  legibly  and 
add  up  columns  of  figures,  has,  for  sev- 
eral years  past,  had  the  result  of  overrun- 
ning the  reporterial  [sic]  market  with 
lads  whose  sole  qualification  for  reporting 
is  the  knowledge  of  short-hand.  As  a  rule, 
these  young  gentlemen  are  ignorant  of 
grammar,  in  many  instances  cannot  spell 
correctly,  know  little  or  nothing  of  mod- 
ern history,  the  knowledge  of  which  is 
essential  to  a  journalist,  and  whenever 
condensation  is  required  are  apt  to  make 
their  sentences  unintelligible.  Their  em- 
ployers, looking  for  their  pecuniary  gains 
from  advertisements  rather  than  from 
the  circulation  of  the  paper,  condone 
their  deficiencies  in  consideration  of 
their  cheapness;  and  in  time  they  are 
promoted  to  the  editorial  room,  at  sala- 
ries considerably  less  than  their  predeces- 


110  OUR  ENGLISH. 

sors  received,  and  proceed  to  write  lead- 
ers and  reviews  without  knowing  how 

o 

to  construct  a  sentence  in  good  literary 
English,  or  even  to  write  grammatic- 
ally." 

No  such  relation  between  employer 
and  employed  as  is  described  by  Mr. 
Frost  has  yet,  so  far  as  I  know,  grown 
up  among  the  persons  engaged  in  the 
production  of  English  novels.  There 
are  no  master -novelists  with  journey- 
men at  work  under  them,  as  journeymen 
worked  for  Dumas  the  elder.  The  tie  be- 
tween publisher  and  novelist  sometimes 
seems  to  be  very  close;  but  the  cases 
are  probably  few  in  which  it  has  serious- 
ly affected  independence  of  action  or  qual- 
ity of  work.  If,  however,  this  branch  of 
industry  continues  to  grow  as  rapidly 
as  it  has  done  within  the  last  half-cen- 
tury, we  may  all  live  to  see  novels  issued 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  Ill 

by  large  establishments  organized  some- 
what after  the  fashion  of  newspaper 
offices. 

Meantime,  what  we  do  see  is  a 
"growing  deterioration"  in  the  novels 
produced  from  month  to  month, — a  de- 
terioration brought  about  by  general 
causes  not  unlike  those  which  tempt 
newspaper  proprietors  to  content  them- 
selves with  inferior  work.  If  badly 
written  novels  have  as  ready  a  sale  as 
well-written  ones,  badly  written  novels 
will  be  supplied  in  abundance.  In  this, 
as  in  every  other  business,  skilled  work- 
men are  few ;  and  those  few,  if  they  find 
that  their  best  work  is  not  appreciated, 
are  in  danger  of  becoming  careless,  or  of 
putting  their  skill  to  base  uses.  If  they 
resist  these  temptations, — as,  fortunately 
for  the  world,  some  do, — it  is  because 
their  ambition  is  not  so  much  to  get  fort- 


OUR  ENGLISH. 

une  and  fame  by  their  books  as  to  do 
their  best  because  it  is  their  best. 

In  all  that  I  say,  I  am,  of  course,  speak- 
ing, not  of  the  ideal  journal,  the  journal 
that  is  conducted  in  all  its  departments 
by  men  of  culture  (if  such  a  journal  there 
be),  not  of  the  novels  of  Thackeray  or  of 
George  Eliot,  but  of  the  newspapers  and 
the  novels  of  the  day. 

Even  these  have  merits  not  to  be 
despised.  Most  of  us  would  proba- 
bly find  it  difficult  to  induce  the  edit- 
or of  a  newspaper  to  put  our  thoughts 
on  the  Irish  question  into  type,  or 
the  publisher  of  successful  novels  to 
print  our  version  of  the  old  story  of 
Amandus  and  Amanda.  Our  contribu- 
tions to  a  newspaper  would  probably 
lack  the  very  qualities  that  give  success 
to  editorial  articles,  which,  though  far 
from  being  models  of  good  English, 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  113 

suit,  nevertheless,  the  intelligence  and 
the  taste  of  their  public ;  or  to  para- 
graphs from  the  "facile  pen"  of  a  re- 
porter, written  in  language  that  would 
make  Addison  turn  in  his  grave,  but 
containing  the  facts  which  people  want 
to  know,  and  stating  them  in  such  a 
fashion  that  a  hasty  reader  understands 
them  at  once.  Our  novels,  though  they 
might  not  violate  the  rules  of  grammar, 
or  paint  scenes  and  characters  with  a 
brush  too  big  for  both  subject  and  art- 
ist, might,  nevertheless,  be  deficient  in 
the  art  of  inventing  a  good  story  and 
of  telling  it  in  an  interesting  way,  in 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  in  skill 
in  construction, —  not  to  speak  of  the 
"  local  color "  and  local  dialect  which 
jaded  minds  demand  nowadays.  I  can- 
not, indeed,  believe,  as  some  writers  ap- 
pear to  do,  that  if  Junius  should  re- 
8 


OUR  ENGLISH. 

appear,  he  would  find  in  our  newspaper 
offices  so  many  pens  more  powerful  than 
his  that  he  would  gladly  withdraw  into 
obscurity  again ;  or  that  if  Thackeray 
should  come  back  under  another  name, 
he  would  have  a  cool  reception  from  a 
public  accustomed  to  better  work:  but 
I  am  sure  that  successful  newspapers 
and  novels,  with  all  their  defects,  are 
not  without  merit.  To  say,  as  Anthony 
Trollope  did,  in  1862,  that  not  a  single 
newspaper  in  the  United  States  is  wor- 
thy of  praise,  and  that  the  very  writing 
is  below  mediocrity,  is  grossly  to  over- 
state the  facts. 

The  misfortune  is  that  it  is  the  de- 
fects rather  than  the  merits,  the  bad 
English  rather  than  the  good  that  strikes 
the  eye  and  sticks  in  the  memory.  Faults 
of  newspaper  English  rapidly  spread 
through  space,  —  a  phrase  that  was 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  115 

hatched  in  Texas  or  Oregon  living  to 
chirp  among  the  "All  Sorts"  of  an  "es- 
teemed contemporary  "  in  Maine,  and,  if 
very  bad,  dying  within  quotation-points 
in  a  metropolitan  journal,  which  cans  it — 
so  to  speak — for  exportation  as  an  Amer- 
icanism. Faults  of  English  characteris- 
tic of  novels  descend  from  generation 
to  generation.  From  Scott  the  second- 
rate  novelist  catches, — not  his  natural- 
ness, vigor,  manliness,  invention,  obser- 
vation, skill  in  narration, — but  his  occa- 
sional grandiloquence,  conirnonplaceness 
in  thought,  or  slovenliness  in  expression ; 
from  Dickens, — not  his  vividness,  pathos, 
and  knowledge  of  life, — but  his  exag- 
gerations of  nature,  his  eccentricities  of 
language,  the  alloy  left  in  his  style  by 
his  early  experience  as  reporter.  What- 
ever in  Bulwer  or  Lord  Beaconsfield  is 
pinchbeck;  whatever  in  the  Bronte  sis- 


116  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ters  is  "intense,"  in  the  modern  slang 
use  of  that  word;  whatever  in  Thacke- 
ray verges  on  coarseness,  or  sentimental- 
ity, or  prolixity;  whatever  in  George 
Eliot  is  awkward  or  over-scientific  in 
expression;  —  is  absorbed  by  inferior 
writers,  combined  with  their  own  weak- 
nesses, and  reproduced  in  surprising 
forms. 

As  most  novelists  read  newspapers, 
and  most  journalists  read  novels,  writers 
of •  each  class  catch  bad  English  from 
those  of  the  other,  and  adapt  it  to  their 
own  purposes.  Hence  such  differences 
in  the  use  of  language  as  exist  between 
the  two  are,  for  the  most  part,  trace- 
able either  to  differences  in  subject- 
matter,  or  to  the  fact,  already  adverted 
to,  that  newspapers  are  read  by  more 
men  than  women,  and  novels  by  more 
women  than  men. 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  117 

« 

In  newspapers,  the  tendency  is  to  sac- 
rifice elegance  and  refinement  to  the 
"  forceful "  or  the  "  funny ;"  in  novels,  to 
sacrifice  vigor  and  compactness  to  the 
sentimental  or  the  fanciful.  The  old- 
fashioned  newspaper,  written  to  please 
the  respectable  and  conservative  classes, 
abounds  in  sonorous  or  sententious 
platitudes;  in  the  old-fashioned  novel, 
written  to  please  female  Philistines, 
platitudes  are  served  with  love  or  re- 
ligion, adorned  with  flowers  of  speech, 
and  flanked  by  descriptions  of  heroes 
and  heroines  and  of  scenery.  The  new- 
fashioned  newspaper,  being  addressed  to 
a  public  which  likes  its  fare  hot  and 
highly  spiced,  abounds  in  slang  of  all 
sorts,  from  that  of  Congress  to  that  of 
the  prize  -  fight  or  the  horse  -  race ;  the 
new-fashioned  novel,  being  addressed  to, 
and  often  written  by,  girls  (young  and 


118  OUR  ENGLISH. 

old)  who  have  more  curiosity  than  ex- 
perience, spices  its  pages  plentifully 
with  French  or  pseudo-French,  with  the 
argot  of  society,  and  with  expressions 
too  risques  for  an  ingenue. 

In  an  age  demanding  brevity,  novel- 
ists eke  out  their  stories  with  petty  de- 
tails that  might  better  be  left  to  the 
imagination,  with  obvious  reflections,  or 
with  irrelevant  digressions;  journalists 
swamp  their  facts  or  opinions  in  a  flood 
of  words.  Sentences  and  paragraphs 
may  be  clear  and  vigorous,  but  the 
chapter  or  the  article  as  a  whole  is 
often  obscure  and  weak.  The  end  may 
be  attached  to  the  beginning,  but  it  is 
not  easy  to  get  hold  or  to  keep  hold  of 
the  thread  of  connection. 

Often  editorial  articles — to  borrow  a 
happily  mixed  metaphor — "smack  of  the 
mill,"  the  writer  sinking  his  individu- 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  119 

ality  in  that  of  the  journal  to  which  he 
contributes.  Even  if  he  had  the  desire, 
he  has  not  the  time  to  be  himself,  as  he 
has  not  the  time  to  be  concise.  For  the 
individuality  of  the  novelist  there  is  a 
better  chance ;  but  he  also  is  in  haste  to 
get  his  wares  on  the  market,  and  is  in- 
spired by  the  idols  of  the  market-place 
rather  than  by  the  spirit  within  him.  If 
o!ie  of  his  books  makes  a  hit,  he  copies 
and  copies  it  until  his  manner  becomes 
mannerism,  his  heroine  a  doll  or  a  cari- 
cature, his  scenery  like  that  of  the  old- 
fashioned  drop-curtain. 

In  novels  and  newspapers  alike,  pre- 
cision in  language  and  nice  distinc- 
tions in  thought  are  rare.  Superlatives 
abound.  There  is  little  gradation,  little 
light  and  shade,  little  of  the  delicate  dis- 
crimination, the  patient  search  for  truth, 
and  the  conscientious  effort  to  express 


120  OUR  ENGLISH. 

truth  exactly,  which  characterize  the 
work  of  a  master. 

To  speak  of  offences  against  grammar 
and  idiom  would  be  to  go  into  minutiae 
foreign  to  my  purpose.  Such  offences 
are  common,  as  everybody  knows,  and 
will  be  common,  so  long  as  uneducated 
or  imperfectly  educated  persons  are  at 
liberty  to  handle  their  pens  as  they  will, 
without  guidance  or  criticism.  Nor  is  it 
worth  while  to  dwell  either  on  the  affec- 
tation of  employing  words  and  phrases 
which  are  no  longer  used  in  good  prose, 
or  on  the  habit  of  making  stale  quota- 
tions— a  habit  which  may  be  studied  at 
one  of  its  sources  in  some  of  the  writ- 
ings of  Hazlitt,  whose  style,  according  to 
Byron,  suffered  from  "  a  cutaneous  erup- 
tion." 

Newspapers   and   novels*  alike  keep 

*  Most  of  the  examples  in  this  paper  are  from 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  121 

"pet  words"  —  words  which,  like  other 
pets,  are  often  in  the  way,  often  fill 
places  that  belong  to  their  betters.  A 
good  speech  is  termed  "breezy"  or 
"neat;"*  a  good  style,  "crisp"  or  "inci- 
sive ;"  an  "  utterance  "  or  a  comely  coun- 
tenance, "  clear-cut "  or  "  clean-cut."  Bad 
features  are  "accentuated"  by  sickness. 
Lectures  are  "punctuated"  with  ap- 
plause. A  clergyman  "performs"  at  a 
funeral;  a  musician  "officiates"  or  "pre- 
sides" at  the  piano-forte.  Many  things, 
from  noses  to  tendencies,  are  "pro- 
nounced ;"  many  things,  from  a  popular 
novel  to  a  popular  nostrum,  are  "  unique," 
and  one  journal  calls  a  thing  "one  of  the 

American  publications,  but  some  arc  from  British 
ones,  for  America  does  not  have  a  monopoly  of  bad 
English. 

*  In  an  account  of  the  hanging  of  a  husband  and 
wife  by  a  California  mob,  we  read,  "The  work  was 
quietly  and  neatly  done." 


122  OUR  ENGLISH. 

most  unique;"  many  things,  from  a  circus 
to  a  book,  have  an  "advent."  Questions 
are  "pivotal,"  achievements  "colossal"  or 
"  monumental,"  books  "  epoch  •  making." 
Every  week  something  is  "inaugurated" 
or  "initiated,"  and  somebody  or  some- 
thing is  "in  touch  with"  somebody  or 
something  else.  We  are  often  asked  to 
"await  developments."  A  few  years 
ago  newspapers  were  talking  of  A.  and 
B.  "and  others  of  the  same  ilk."  A 
word  just  now  in  vogue  is  "  weird." 
We  read  not  only  of  the  "  weird " 
beauty  of  Keats,  but  also  of  the  "  weird- 
est" misconstructions  of  facts,  or  mis- 
statements  of  principles.  "Factor"  and 
"feature"  appear  in  the  oddest  company, 
and  "environment"  has  become  a  wea- 
riness to  the  spirit.* 

*  "I   wish,"  wrote   Miss   Austen,  in   1814,    to 
her  niece,  "  you  would  not  let  him  [the  hero  of  a 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  123 

Some  novels  and  most  newspapers  are 
prompt  to  adopt  the  slang  of  the  day, 
whatever  its  source.  We  read,  for  ex- 
ample, of  schemes  for  "raking  in  the 
dimes."  One  poetical  paragraph  ends, 
"It  pulls  one  up  dreadfully  in  one's 
reverie  to  hear,"  etc.  Newspapers  "  take 
stock  in  "  a  senator,  and  "  get  to  the  bot- 
tom fact"  of  a  discussion.  The  hero  of 
one  novel  is  "padded  to  the  nines;1'  the 
heroine  of  another  has  a  brow,  eyes,  and 
face  that  are  all  "strung  up  to  the  con- 
cert-pitch." The  journalist's  candidate 
and  the  novelist's  hero  alike  "  put  in  an 
appearance,"  and  "  pan  out  well." 

The  disposition  to  obscure  the  mean- 


novel  which  the  niece  had  written]  plunge  into  a 
'  vortex  of  dissipation.'  I  do  not  object  to  the  thing, 
but  I  cannot  bear  the  expression  ;  it  is  such  thorough 
novel  slang,  and  so  old,  that  I  dare  say  Adam  met 
\vith  it  in  the  first  novel  he  opened." 


124  OUR  ENGLISH. 

ing  by  technical  expressions  is  not  un- 
known in  newspapers,  but  it  shows  it- 
self chiefly  in  novels.  Even  in  "The 
Heart  of  Mid-Lothian  "  we  are  told  that 
"  the  acid  fermentation "  of  a  dispute 
was  "  at  once  neutralized  by  the  power- 
ful alkali  implied  in  the  word  secret." 
Even  George  Eliot,  in  her  description  of 
Gwendolen  at  the  beginning  of  "Dan- 
iel Derouda,"  uses  "  dynamic "  in  a  way 
which  called  forth  much  criticism  when 
the  book  was  published.  A  later  nov- 
elist talks  of  "  neuralgia  of  the  emo- 
tions;" another  of  the  "effect  of  the 
meerschaum's  subtle  influence  upon  cer- 
tain groups  of  ganglionic  nerve  -  cells 
deep  in  his  cerebrum."  Another  calls 
the  hero  "  one  of  the  coefficients  of  the 
age;"  and  still  another  remarks  that, 
"  as  men  gravitate  towards  their  lead- 
ing grievance,  he  went  off  at  a  tangent." 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  125 

We  read  of  fancy's  taking  "  a  tangential 
flight;"  of  the  "inspiration  that  was  to 
co-ordinate  conflicting  data ;"  of  a  man's 
"  undergoing  molecular  moral  disintegra- 
tion ;"  of  life  as  "  being  a  function  of 
two  variables,  money  and  fashion ;"  and 
of  death  as  a  "common  and  relentless 
factor,  getting,  as  time  went  on,  increas- 
ing value  in  the  complicated  equation 
of  being." 

One  set  of  faults  seems  to  spring  from 
the  belief  on  the  part  of  some  journal- 
ists and  novelists,  and  of  young  writ- 
ers who  have  caught  the  malady  from 
them,  that  there  are  not  enough  words 
in  the  English  language  to  supply  their 
needs,  and  that,  therefore,  it  is  necessary 
to  coin  just  a  few  more,  or  at  least  to 
take  them  from  the  mint  of  some  other 
writer  of  the  day.  Hence,  new  forms 
for  old  words,  and  new  formations  from 


126  OUR  ENGLISH. 

old  words.  One  journal  tells  its  readers 
that  "'mentality,'  though  not  in  the 
dictionaries,  is  a  good  English  word." 
Another  says :  " '  Christmasing;'  we  ought 
to  have  such  a  word."  The  hero  of  one 
novel  is  en^aeed  in  "  battle-axinsr"  diffi- 

o    o  o 

culties ;  the  heroine  of  another  has  a  ter- 
rible "  disappoint."  A  traveller  "  gon- 
doles "  in  Amsterdam,  "  hotelizes "  in 
London,  and  is  "  recepted  "  and  "  dined  " 
on  his  return  to  New  York.  A  popular 
writer  talks  of  rural  mechanics  too*  idle 
to  "mechanize."  "Burglarize"  is  a 
newspaper  word ;  "  burgled  "  has  been 
borrowed  for  fiction  from  "The  Pirates 
of  Penzance."  We  read  of  sounds  hol- 
low and  "echoey;"  of  "mayoral"  qual- 
ities; of  "faddists"  (people  with  fads); 
of  a  bow  which  "  grotesqued  "  a  compli- 
ment ;  of  an  "  aborigine "  (apparently 
the  singular  of  aborigines) ;  of  "  cad- 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  127 

desses"*  and  "flirtees;"  of  the  "genius 
of  swell  ness;"  of  little  fellows  who 
"cheek"  bigger  ones;  of  men  whose 
good  looks  do  not  atone  for  the  "lack- 
ness"  of  their  characters,  and  of  desires 
which  are  "  wide-horizoned."  It  would  be 
easy  to  extend  this  list,  if  either  my  read- 
ers or  I  had  the  appetite  to  go  through 
what  a  recent  writer  terms  "a  menu 
bristling  with  word-coinage."  "There's 
nae  living,"  as  Meg  Dods,  in  "  St.Ronan's 


*  The  history  of  this  word  is  instructive.  In 
1870  it  appeared  in  print — for  the  first  time,  so  far 
as  has  yet  been  discovered — in  The  Illustrated  Lon- 
don News.  In  1876  (in  "The  Prime  Minister,"  ii., 
xvii.)  Trollope  says  that  Lady  Glencora  declared  that 
she  "  would  shake  hands  with  no  more  parliament- 
ary cads  and  'caddcsses' — a  word  which  Her  Grace 
condescended  to  coin  for  her  own  use."  In  1884 — 
at  least  fourteen  years  after  the  word  was  first  print- 
ed— Charles  Rcade  (in  "  A  Perilous  Secret,"  i.,  vii.) 
felt  obliged  to  define  "caddcss"  as  meaning  "a  cad 
of  the  feminine  gender." 


128  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Well,"  says —  "there's  nae  living  for 
new  words  in  this  new  warld  neither, 
and  that  is  another  vex  to  auld  folks 
such  as  me." 

Another  characteristic  of  both  newspa- 
pers and  novels  comes  sometimes  from 
the  ambition  to  command  Ian2:uao;e  that 

O  O 

moves  in  the  highest  circles,  and  some- 
times from  the  determination  to  be  fun- 
ny. I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  practice  of 
using  the  longest  and  most  high-sound- 
ing words  and  expressions — words  which 
no  one  would  think  of  using  in  conver- 
sation or  in  familiar  correspondence. 
"Scribes"  of  this  class,  as  they  call 
themselves,  "savor"  their  wine  instead 
of  tasting  it,  "  locate  "  men  and  women 
instead  of  placing  them,  "imbibe"  or 
"  perform  the  rites  of  Bacchus,"  instead 
of  drinking.  In  the  morning  they  "  un- 
close" the  eyelids,  and  "perform  the  usual 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  129 

operation  of  a  diligent  friction  of  the  or- 
gans of  vision ;"  in  the  evening  they  oc- 
cupy "  curule  chairs  "  until  it  is  time  for 
them  to  "withdraw  to  their  apartments." 
Their  spectacles  are  "lenses;"  their  burg- 
lar "  reckons  up  the  harvest  of  his  hands ;" 
their  facts  are  "proven,"  their  streets 
"paveu"  or  "semi-paven ;"  the  people 
who  dine  at  their  houses  are  il  commen- 
sals," and  those  who  ride  in  their  cabs  are 
"incumbents."  With  them  snow  becomes 
"  white  crystals  "  or  "  fluffed  ermine  pu- 
rity," rain  "an  effusion  of  water,"  crape 
"sable  insignia  of  death,"  potatoes  and 
bread  "  staple  edibles,"  a  dressing-case 
"  travelling  arrangements;"  "  sales-ladies'" 
wait  upon  "gilded  youth;"  names  are 
"retired"  from  visiting-cards;  seats  are 
"resumed;"  souls  are  "perused;"  prices 
are  "  altitudinous ;"  a  politician  who 
happens  to  be  in  town  blossoms  into 
9 


130  OUR  ENGLISH. 

a  "  visiting  statesman  ;"  an  author  "  ob- 
ligates" instead  of  binding  himself;  a 
visitor  "  refreshes  his  olfactory  organ " 
with  a  pinch  of  snuff;  a  fortune  quickly 
made  is  said  to  be  "as  stupendously 
large  as  phenomenally  swift  wron."  The 
last  citation,  which  is  from  a  prominent 
journalist,  is  perhaps  no  worse  in  its 
way  than  "  potential  liquid  refresh- 
ment," an  expression  used  by  Lord  Bea- 
consfield  and  copied  many  times  since; 
than  a  later  novelist's  remark  that  "  the 
footfalls  of  a  little  black  mare  'anno- 
tated the  silence  of  the  place,"  while 
"  an  isolated  stellulated  light  illu- 
mined the  snow;"  or  than  a  clever 
woman's  designation  of  veteran  soldiers 
as  "  mutilated  pages  of  history."  Per- 
haps, however,  the  palm  may  be  carried 
off  by  the  novelist  who  speaks  of  "  the 
impression  she  gave  from  her  little  slit- 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  131 

like  tacit  sources  " — that  is,  apparently, 
her  eyes. 

In  this  last  characteristic,  novels  have, 
perhaps,  taken  the  lead.  Instances  of 
it  in  its  serious  form  are  to  be  found 
even  in  Scott,  when  he  is  in  what 
he  himself,  calls  his  "  big  bow-wow " 
mood;  as,  "The  creak  of  the  screw-nails 
presently  announced  that  the  lid  of  the 
last  mansion  of  mortality  was  in  the  act 
of  being  secured  above  its  tenant;"  "My 
blood  throbbed  to  my  feverish  appre- 
hension, in  pulsations  which  resembled 
the  deep  and  regular  strokes  of  a  distant 
fulling-mill,  and  tingled  in  my  veins  like 
streams  of  liquid  fire."  Instances  of  it 
in  its  humorous  form  are  to  be  found 
even  in  Dickens,  when  the  reporter  in 
him  gets  the  better  of  the  humorist;  as, 
"  ligneous  sharper,"  i.  e.,  Wegg  with  his 
wooden  leg ;  he  was  "  accelerated  to  rest 


132  OUR  ENGLISH. 

with  a  poker ;"  "  The  celebration  is  a 
breakfast,  because  a  dinner  on  the  de- 
sired scale  of  suinptuosity  cannot  be 
achieved  within  less  limits  than  those 
of  the  non-existent  palatial  residence  of 
which  so  many  people  are  madly  envi- 
ous." 

Word  •  pictures,  so  called,  sometimes 
hang  on  newspaper  columns ;  and  they 
abound  in  recent  novels.  One  author 
declares  that  "  God's  gold  "  was  in  the 
heroine's  hair,  for  "  it  was  shot  through 
with  sunset  spikes  of  yellow  light."  An- 
other says  of  the  heroine  that  "  the  sun- 
light made  a  rush  at  her  rich  chestnut 
hair,"  and  affirms  that  she  had  "  white 
teeth  showing  like  pearls  dropped  in  a 
rose,  and  a  white  throat  in  a  foam  of 
creamy  laces."  Another  says  that  "the 
moon  searched  out  the  deep-red  lines" 
in  the  heroine's  hair,  and  that  her  lips 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  133 

had  "  musical  curves."  We  read  of  "sul- 
try eyes  flashing  with  the  vistas  of  vic- 
tory ;"  of  "  the  amber  and  crimson  lus- 
tres of  joy ;"  of  a  sun  "  resting  on  the 
hill  like  a  drop  of  blood  on  an  eye- 
lid ;"  of  a  head  "  with  one  little  round 

• 

spot  on  the  top  reminding  one  of 
what  a  bird's-eye  view  might  show 
of  Drummond  Lake  in  the  Dismal 
Swamp;"  of  a  landscape  which  is  "a 
perfect  symphony  in  brown ;"  of  a  wom- 
an who  is  "  a  ravishing  symphony  in 
white,  pale  green,  and  gold ;"  of  anoth- 
er who  "clings  to  the  fringes  of  night;" 
of  another  whose  "  small  hand,  which 
seemed  to  blush  at  its  own  naked  beau- 
ties, supported  her  head,  embedded  in 
the  volumes  of  her  hair,  like  the  fair- 
est alabaster  set  in  the  deepest  ebony ;" 
and  of  another  whose  "soft,  impotent 
defiance  flew  like  an  angry  bird,  and 


134  OUR  ENGLISH. 

was  transfixed  on  the  still  penetrating 
gaze  of  his  eyes." 

Such  are  some  of  the  varieties  of  bad 
English  to  be  found  in  newspapers  and 
novels,  bad  English  to  which  we  are  ex- 
posed, and  by  which  our  own  English 
will  be  injured  unless  we  guard  it  with 
the  utmost  care.  For  the  sake  of  our 
English,  if  for  no  other  reason,  we  should 
all  try  to  like  something  better  than 
reading  of  this  class,  and  should  persist 
in  the  effort  until  we  succeed.  If  Shak- 
spere  and  Milton  are  distasteful,  we  may 
try  Pope  or  Cowper,  Tennyson  or  Whit- 
tier.  If  George  Eliot  is  dull,  we  may 
try  Fielding  or  Hawthorne,  Thackeray 
or  Charles  Keade,  Scott  or  Trollope. 
If  Bacon  seems  heavy,  Emerson  or  Lan- 
dor  is  at  hand.  For  every  reader  there 
is  some  well-written  book  which  he  can 
enjoy  if  he  will,  and  which  may  serve 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  135 

as  an  antidote  to  the  noxious  effects  pro- 
duced by  the  novels  and  the  newspapers 
of  the  day. 

Can  we  do  nothing  but  provide  an 
antidote?  Is  there  no  way  of  keeping 
the  poison  out  of  the  system?  If  not, 
what  hope  can  we  cherish  that  pure 
English  will  hold  its  own,  even  as  well 
as  it  has  done? 

One  thing  we  may  be  sure  of:  people 
will  not  give  up  reading  ephemeral  pub- 
lications. Such  publications,  on  the  con- 
trary, seem  destined  to  appear  in  con- 
stantly increasing  numbers,  and  to  be 
read  more  and  more;  for,  as  time  goes 
on,  people  take  more  and  more  interest 
in  the  world  they  live  in.  They  will 
read  to-day's  newspaper,  however  poor 
in  itself,  because  it  has  the  breath  of  to- 
day's life  in  it.  They  will  give  their  at- 
tention more  readily  to  a  clever  story  in 


136  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  last  magazine  than  to  Miss  Austen's 

O 

"Emma,"  because  the  atmosphere  of 
"Emma"  is  not,  and  that  of  the  new 
story  is,  their  atmosphere.  The  tide  sets 
strongly  one  way,  and  it  will  make  short 
work  of  any  Mrs.  Partington  who  tries 
to  stop  it  with  her  broom. 

Another  thing  seeins  to  be  clear:  a 
writer  who  wishes  to  be  read  must  have 
something  to  say,  and  he  must  say  it  in 
an  interesting  manner.  People  do  not 
prefer  bad  English  to  good ;  but  if  the 
good  English  is  in  a  dull  piece  of  writ- 
ing, and  the  bad  English  in  a  clever  one, 
they  will  (and  with  reason)  choose  the 
latter. 

It  follows  that  improvement  in  the 
quality  of  current  English  is  to  be 
brought  about,  if  at  all,  not  by  ef- 
forts to  prevent  the  production  or  the 
dissemination  of  newspapers  and  novels, 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  137 

but  by  raising  the  quality  of  those  that 
are  produced.  Men  and  women  of  cult- 
ure and  of  high  aims  must  be  encour- 
aged to  write  for  the  public.  Students 
in  our  colleges  who  look  to  book-making 
or  to  journalism  as  a  profession,  must  be 
urged  to  keep  constantly  in  mind  that 
whatever  they  W7rite  should,  always  and 
under  all  conditions,  be  their  best;*  and 
that  by  best  is  meant,  not  merely  Eng- 
lish that  will  bear  grammatical  and  rhe- 
torical tests,  but  English  that  means 
something,  and  means  it  so  strongly 
that  a  reader  who  has  once  begun  the 
article  or  the  chapter  feels  obliged  to 
finish  it. 

I  speak  of  college  graduates,  not  be- 
cause I  believe  that  they  have  a  monop- 

*  "  He  who  does  not  write  as  well  as  he  can  on 
every  occasion,"  said  a  well-known  critic,  "  will  soon 
form  the  habit  of  not  writing  well  at  all." 


138  OUR  ENGLISH. 

oly  of  good  English, — far  from  it, — but 
because  of  late  years  large  numbers  of 
them  have  taken  to  the  pen  for  a  living, 
and  because  they  are  exposed  to  special 
dangers.  Men  whose  style  is  the  result 
of  self-directed  effort  will  guard  jealous- 
ly what  it  has  cost  them  so  much  pains 
to  acquire ;  but  the  " liberally  educated" 
youth,  who  knows  all  that  Murray  and 
Blair  can  teach  him,  is  tempted,  when 
he  discovers  (as  he  is  pretty  sure  to 
do)  his  inferiority  in  some  respects  to 
the  self-educated  reporter  at  the  desk 
by  his  side  who  began  life  as  an  of- 
fice-boy, but  who  has  "the  newspaper- 
sense,"  and  has  mastered  the  tricks  of 
the  trade  —  is  tempted,  and  sometimes 
yields  to  the  temptation,  to  sacrifice  his 
English  to  his  desire  to  attract  atten- 

O 

tiou.  If,  however,  his  English  is  hardy 
enough  to  withstand  the  chilling  influ- 


ENGLISH  IN  NEWSPAPERS  AND  NOVELS.  139 

ences  that  surround  it,  and  if  he  uses 
it,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  a 
means  to  something  more  important,  he 
may  not  only  keep  it  in  its  purity  for 
his  own  use,  but  may  also  make  it  felt 
in  his  little  world  as  a  purifying  and 
inspiring  force. 

Even  if  those  who  serve  the  public, 
whether  in  newspapers  or  in  novels, 
write  as  well  as  they  can,  it  will  still 
be  the  plain  duty  of  readers  not  to  give 
too  much  of  their  time  to  publications 
that  are  like  the  flower  of  the  field, 
which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast 
into  the  oven  or  the  waste-basket.  At 
its  best,  journalism  can  never,  in  any  of 
its  forms,  take  the  place  of  literature. 
It  does  not,  as  literature  does,  lift  us  out 
of  the  trivial  interests  and  petty  passions 
of  daily  life  into  a  pure  and  invigorating 
air.  It  does  not,  as  literature  does,  speak 


140  OUR  ENGLISH. 

a  language  so  noble  that  while  we  read 
we  forget  our  own  vulgar  and  provincial 
modes  of  speech.  Often,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  echoes  our  lowest  selves  in  its 
methods,  its  manners,  and  its  English. 


IV. 

ENGLISH  IN   THE   PULPIT. 


ENGLISH  in  the  pulpit  is  subject  to 
the  same  rules  as  English  out  of  the  pul- 
pit. English  that  is  good  in  a  church 
is  good  in  Congress;  English  that  is  bad 
in  a  speech  is  bad  in  a  sermon.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  "sacred  rhetoric." 
Chairs  of  "  sacred  rhetoric  "  still  exist,  I 
believe;  but  it  is  difficult  to  perceive 
any  sense  in  which  the  instruction  given 
by  the  occupant  of  such  a  chair  is  "sa- 
cred," or  any  point  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish he  instils  into  his  pupils  differs 
from  that  taught  by  those  who  observe 


142  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  rules  of  profane  grammar  and  rhet- 
oric,— that  is,  follow  the  best  usage  of 
the  best  writers  and  speakers,  whether 
laymen  or  divines.  "I  do  not  think," 
says  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  (in  his  excellent 
lectures  before  the  Divinity  School  of 
Yale  College),  "  I  do  not  think  there  is 
any  such  thing  as  a  sermon-style  proper. 
He  who  can  write  other  things  well,  give 
him  the  soul  and  purpose  and  knowledge 
of  a  preacher,  and  he  will  write  you  a 
good  sermon.  But  he  who  cannot  write 
anything  well  cannot  write  a  sermon 
well,  although  we  often  think  he  can." 

In  applying  to  sermons  the  general 
principles  which  govern  the  use  of  Eng- 
lish in  other  species  of  composition  in- 
tended for  delivery,  we  must,  of  course, 
take  into  account  the  subject-matter  of 
the  preacher  and  the  conditions  under 
which  he  speaks;  but  we  should  act  in 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  143 

a  similar  way  if  we  were  dealing  with 
speeches  on  the  tariff  or  with  lectures 
on  electricity.  What  difference  there  is 
between  the  English  of  a  successful 
preacher  and  that  of  an  equally  suc- 
cessful lecturer,  springs,  not  from  a  dif- 
ference in  the  principles  of  composition, 
but  from  a  difference  in  the  application 
of  the  same  principles. 

Pulpit  English  has  not  always  been 
essentially  the  same  with  laymen's  Eng- 
lish. Once  the  minister  was  really  a 
pastor,  a  shepherd  of  the  people,  by  a 
figure  of  speech  that  was  close  to  the 
fact;  for  his  flock  knew  no  other  past- 
ures than  those  to  which  he  either  led 
or  drove  them.  To  be  a  minister  was 
to  be  an  authority,  from  whom  there  was 
no  appeal.  To  criticise  a  sermon  as  to 
doctrine,  language,  or  even  length,  was 


144  OUR  ENGLISH. 

like  criticising  any  other  divinely  ap- 
pointed dispensation.  Generations  ago, 
the  bucolic  and  even  the  suburban,  if 
not  the  urban,  mind  enjoyed  listening  to 
"  hard"  words,  through  which  no  spark  of 
meaning  glimmered,  and  even  to  Latin* 
or  Hebrew  quotations ;  to  logic  that  led 
nowhither,  or  led  to  a  conclusion  which 
nobody  in  the  parish  doubted ;  to  the 
condemnation  of  sins  which  nobody  in 
the  parish  had  a  mind  to, — sins  commit- 
ted in  Judea,  perhaps,  or  by  the  Scarlet 
Woman  of  Rome ;  to  texts  of  Scripture 
which  had  been  stitched  into  so  many 
sermons  that  they  were  worn  thread- 
bare; to  the  droning  "first,"  "secondly," 

*  In  Evelyn's  Diary  (1681)  we  read:  "Our  new 
curate  preach'd,  a  pretty  hopefull  young  man,  yet 
somewhat  raw,  newly  come  from  college,  full  of 
Latino  sentences,  which  in  time  will  weare  off."  In 
1683,  Evelyn  speaks  of  "  Latine  sentences  "  as  "  now 
quite  out  of  fashion  in  the  pnlpit." 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  145 

"thirdly,"  which,  by  virtue  of  the  numer- 
ical order,  were  assumed  to  stand  for 
distinct  and  logically  connected  propo- 
sitions ;  and  to  the  "  and  now,  my  breth- 
ren," which  announced  the  concluding 
series  of  exhortations. 

In  those  far-off  days,  the  people  in 
each  parish  accepted  the  sermons  which 
their  pastor  chose  to  give  them,  as  they 
accepted  the  pastor  himself,  as  they  ac- 
cepted the  cold  meeting-house  in  this 
world  and  the  doctrine  of  hell -fire  in 
the  next.  Believing  that  their  minister 
broke  to  them  the  bread  of  life,  they 
swallowed  sour  and  heavy  sermons  as 
contentedly  as  they  did  sweet  and  light 
ones.  "Dulness,"  as  Pope  tells  us,  was 
"sacred  in  a  sound  divine."  Great 
preachers  flourished  in  those  times  as  in 
all  times  before  or  since  ;  but  it  was  pos- 
sible for  ignorance  to  wear  a  gown  for 
10 


146  OUR  ENGLISH. 

a  lifetime  without  being  found  out,  so 
great  was  the  deference  paid  to  the  cloth 
by  the  laity, —  especially  where,  as  in 
New  England,  the  social  standing  of  the 
clergy  was  high. 

To-day  the  preacher  must  stand  or  fall 
on  his  own  merits.  His  congregation 
look  up  to  him,  if  they  do  look  up  to 
him,  not  as  a  clergyman,  but  as  a  man. 
They  value  his  sermons,  if  they  do  value 
them,  not  as  sermons,  but  as  being,  or  as 
seeming  to  the  listeners  to  be,  good  ser- 
mons. Their  feeling  towards  him  is  not 
ill  expressed  by  Mrs.  Brown,  a  member 
of  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Salem  Chapel,  when 
she  says,  "We  pays  'em  their  salary, 
and  we  'as  a  right  to  a  civil  \vord :  but 
a  minister's  a  minister,  and  I'll  show 
him  respect  as  long  as  he  deserves  it." 
In  the  pulpit,  as  out  of  it,  the  minister 
now  receives  just  as  much  respect  as  he 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  147 

deserves,  and  no  more.  Sooiier  or  later,  he 
is  sure  to  find  his  honest  level.  To  induce 
those  who  are  not  habitual  church-goers 
to  go  to  hear  him,  he  must  acquire  the 
reputation  of  having  something  valuable 
to  say;  to  make  the  inattentive  atten- 
tive, he  must  say  something  worth  hear- 
ing, and  must  say  it  after  such  a  fashion 
that  it  will  be  listened  to. 

If  a  discourse,  though  ideally  excellent 
as  a  piece  of  composition,  produces  no 
effect  on  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed, 
it  is  a  failure.  A  sermon  equally  well 
adapted  to  a  hundred  different  congre- 
gations— were  such  a  thing  conceivable 
— would  be  a  sermon  for  nobody.  No 
sermon  can  be  absolutely  good.  No  ser- 
mon can  be  equally  efficacious  with  an 
American  congregation  and  with  an 
English  one,  in  the  city  and  in  the  coun- 
try, in  the  "  first  church "  and  in  the 


148  OUR  ENGLISH. 

"  second  church  "  of  the  same  city,  or 
even  in  the  same  church  on  two  Sundays 
five  years  apart.  A  preacher  with  a 
sensitive  nervous  organization  soon  dis- 
covers that  a  discourse  which  produced 
a  great  effect  upon  one  body  of  men  is 
powerless  with  another;  and  that,  if  he 
studies  the  spiritual  good  of  his  parish- 
ioners, he  must  beware  of  turning  the 
barrel  over  too  often.  "Nothing  that 
is  anonymous,"  says  Cardinal  Newman, 
"  will  preach  ;  nothing  that  is  dead  and 
gone;  nothing  even  which  is  of  yester- 
day, however  religious  in  itself  and  use- 
ful." 

In  order  to  impress  his  hearers,  a 
preacher  must  hold  their  minds  to  the 
substance  of  what  he  is  saying.  A 
preacher  who  pleases  by  figures  of 
speech,  sketches  of  travel,  subtleties  of 
reasoning,  happy  turns  of  expression, 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  149 

graceful  gestures,  or  melodious  voice, 
may  "  draw  full  houses," — to  use  a  phrase 
often  transferred  from  the  stage  to  certain 
pulpits;  but  he  is  in  no  true  sense  success- 
ful, unless  he  fixes  the  attention  of  his 
hearers  on  the  subject-matter  of  his  dis- 
course. A  preacher  who  is  compliment- 
ed upon  this  or  that  brilliant  passage  in 
a  sermon  may  with  reason  apprehend 
that  he  has  failed  in  the  lesson  of  the 
day.  "  Fine  writing,"  says  the  late  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury,  "is  the  pest  of  all  true 
theology.  People  will  be  brilliant,  star- 
tling, original ;  and,  in  that  spirit,  they 
sacrifice  everything  to  a  'pregnant  expres- 
sion.'" "Many  a  sermon,"  writes  Pres- 
ident Robinson,  of  Brown  University, 
"  from  over-elaboration  of  its  rhetoric,  is 
open  to  the  charge  brought  by  John 
Foster  against  the  sermons  of  the  dis- 
tinguished Scotch  divine,  Dr.  Blair: 


150  OUR  ENGLISH. 

'They  were  chilled  through  in  stand- 
ing so  long  to  be  dressed.'  The  style 
which  diverts  attention  from  the  thought 
to  itself,  whether  from  excess  of  orna- 
mentation or  from  deficiency  of  suitable 
attire,  is  always  a  vicious  style.  And  it 
is  a  vice  that  in  a  sermon  is  inexcusable. 
When  attention  has  been  arrested  by 
the  style  rather  than  by  the  thought, 
and  hearers  remember  images  and  tropes 
and  fine  turns  of  expression  instead  of 
the  truth  discussed,  the  sermon  is  a  com- 
parative failure.  The  best  style  is  like 
plate-glass,  so  transparent  that,  in  look- 
ing at  the  objects  beyond  it,  you  forget 
the  medium  through  which  you  see 
them.  Alas !  that  so  much  pulpit  rhet- 
oric distorts  and  discolors  and  half  con- 
ceals, if  it  does  not  hide,  the  very  truth 
it  professes  to  be  making  clear." 

To  inspire  interest  in  the  substance 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  151 

of  a  discourse  is  much ;  but  it  is  not  all 
that  is  needed  to  produce  a  profound 
impression.  We  listen,  as  in  a  pleasant 
dream,  to  the  silver  voice  and  the  sweet 
sentiments  of  certain  preachers, — preach- 
ers, too,  who  have  something  to  say; 
but  when  they  have  finished  we  start 
up  as  from  a  dream,  rub  our  eyes,  and 
return  to  the  wide-awake  world,  taking 
with  us  no  more  of  the  sermon  than  of 
other  dreams.  We  admire  the  skill  and 
speed  with  which  a  preacher  of  a  very 
different  class  puts  together  an  apparent- 
ly logical  structure;  but  the  cloud-castle 
vanishes  the  moment  we  leave  him. 

The  tests  of  English  in  the  pulpit, 
then,  are  to  be  sought  in  the  pews.  It 
follows, — since  the  people  who  go  to 
church  are,  in  our  days,  very  much  the 
same  in  the  pews  and  out  of  them, — it 
follows  that  a  preacher  cannot  hope  to 


152  OUR  ENGLISH. 

interest  and  impress  his  hearers  unless 
he  uses  language  which  they  readily  un- 
derstand, language  with  which  they  are 
familiar  in  the  best  books  they  read  and 
the  best  speakers  they  hear. 

A  generation  ago  there  were  clergy- 
men— in  England  at  least — whose  gram- 
mar was  not  above  reproach :  but  the 
English  of  the  leading  New  York  preach- 
ers of  to-day  is,  as  the  correspondent  of 
a  Boston  secular  journal  affirms,  "  uni- 
formly correct ;"  and  we  may  safely  as- 
sume that  what  is  true  in  New  York  is 
true  in  every  other  part  of  the  country. 
If,  however,  there  be  by  chance  a  stray 
minister  anywhere  in  the  United  States 
who  breaks  the  elementary  rules  of  syn- 
tax, there  is  nothing  to  be  said  to  him 
as  a  minister,  except  what  may  be  said  to 
a  layman  who  has  not  mastered  the 
A  B  C  of  his  native  tongue. 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  153 

More  than  a  century  and  a  half  ago, 
the  pulpit  seriously  suffered  from  an  evil 
which  was  pointed  out  by  Dean  Swift. 
In  "A  Letter  to  a  Young  Clergyman," 
Swift  condemns  "  the  frequent  use  of 
obscure  terms,  which  by  the  women  are 
called  hard  words,  and,  by  the  bet- 
ter sort  of  vulgar,  fine  language;  than, 
which,"  says  he,  "  I  do  not  know  a 
more  universal,  inexcusable,  and  unnec- 
essary mistake  among  the  clergy  of  all 
distinctions,  but  especially  the  younger 
practitioners.  .  .  .  Among  hard  words,  I 
number  those  .  .  .  which  are  peculiar  to 
divinity  as  it  is  a  science,  because  I  have 
observed  several  clergymen,  otherwise 
little  fond  of  obscure  terms,  yet  in  their 
sermons  very  liberal  of  those  which  they 
find  in  ecclesiastical  writers,  as  if  it  were 
our  duty  to  understand  them — which  I 
am  sure  it  is  not." 


154  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Long  after  Swift's  letter  was  pub- 
lished, there  still  existed  a  pulpit  dia- 
lect,— or  rather  several  dialects  in  the 
several  churches,  differing  from  one  an- 
other in  some  respects,  but  agreeing  in 
their  uulikeness  to  common  speech. 
Some  of  the  expressions  found  in  these 
dialects  have,  as  everybody  knows, 
passed  out  of  pulpit  use  with  the 
controversies  of  which  they  were  the 
battle-cries:  others  may  still  be  heard 
in  discourses  by  preachers  of  the  old 
school,  who  begin  invocations  and  ex- 
hortations with  the  lonjx-drawn  Oil  of  the 

O 

revivalist.  Such  preachers  use,  in  prayer 
and  in  sermon,  pet  expressions  that 
sound  to  some  ears  like  cant;  as,  "  un- 
covenanted  mercies,"  "  beatific  vision," 
"  unsearchable  dispensations,"  "  sin-pol- 
luted lips,"  "  unspeakable  and  everlast- 
ing felicity  reserved  for  the  saints."  They 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  155 

are  addicted  to  phrases  like  "May  we 
have  a  realizing  sense  of  our  shortcom- 
ings ;"  "  May  we  remember  our  transgres- 
sions in  the  hour  and  article  of  death ;" 
"May  we,  while  still  in  this  land  of 
probation,  be  tremblingly  alive  to  Thy 
gr-a-cef  "Grant  us  to  grow  more  and 
more  unto  the  image  of  Gord" — a  pro- 
nunciation which  they  apparently  re- 
gard as  more  reverential  than  the  usual 
one.  "  O  Lord,"  says  the  (unwritten) 
Methodist  liturgy,  as  taken  down  by  one 
who  has  heard  it  often,  "  we  thank  Thee 
that,  while  during  the  past  week  thou- 
sands as  good  as  we  by  nature,  and  far 
better  by  practice,  have  been  called  upon 
to  try  the  realities  of  an  unknown  world, 
we  are  still  on  praying  ground  and  in- 
terceding terms,  the  spared  monuments 
of  Thy  mercy." 

Some  preachers  who  avoid  ecclesiasti- 


156  OUR  ENGLISH. 

cal  formulas  fall  into  philosophical  ones; 
as,  "  will-power,"  "  subjective  and  objec- 
tive." the  "  categories  of  the  Infinite." 

'  O 

Others  indulge  in  sentimental  phrases; 
as,  "greenness  and  beauty,"  "sweetness 
and  light,"  "love-service,"  "soul-building." 
Others  are  attached  to  certain  obsolete 
or  obsolescent  words,  most  of  which 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Bible ;  as,  verily, 
nay,  peradventure,  hatli,  spake,  thereof 
and  whereof,  wherewith  and  wherewithal, 
albeit,  holden,  tarry,  marvel,  husbandman, 
lintel, portals,  temples  (for  churches),  hab- 
itations or  tabernacles  (for  houses),  gar- 
ments or  raiment  (for  clothes).  Others 
are  fond  of  euphemistic  or  euphuistic 
paraphrases  and  circumlocutions ;  sound- 
ing sentences  with  a  good  many  O's 
in  them,  and  a  good  many  mores  and 
mosts ;  as,  more  full,  more  true,  more 
dear  (for  fuller,  truer,  and  clearer),  most 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  157 

good  (for  very  good);  tones  that  are 
neither  speech  nor  song,  but  a  hybrid 
almost  unknown  among  adults  out  of 
the  clerical  profession ;  and  styles  of 
pronunciation  and  enunciation  peculiar 
to  the  clergy.  In  one  form  or  another, 
pulpit  English  is  still  to  be  heard  even 
from  those  who  are  hostile  to  it  in  the- 
ory,— as  the  poetic  diction  which  Words- 
worth was  so  hot  against  crept  into 
"The  Excursion." 

Within  a  few  years,  a  reaction  against 
ecclesiastical  phrases  has  set  in, — a  re- 
action so  strong  that,  like  the  reaction 
against  the  poetic  diction  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  it  has  led  to  the  adoption 
of  a  style  of  writing  and  speaking  very 
different  from  that  of  the  past,  but  not 
less  objectionable.  In  sermons  of  this 
class,  the  idols  of  the  church  are  roughly 
handled ;  but  the  very  men  who  assail 


158  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  graven  images  of  the  pulpit  fall 
down  before  the  idols  of  Wall  Street,  of 
Fifth  Avenue,  of  the  caucus,  of  a  liter- 
ary coterie,  and  even — worst  of  all — of 
what  is  known  as  American  humor. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  it  is  not 
better  to  venerate  forms  and  symbols 
than  to  venerate  nothing;  to  talk  an 
ecclesiastical  patois,  rather  than  to  bor- 
row slang  and  vulgarisms  from  the 
streets;  to  use  phrases  which,  though 
now  out  of  date,  were  once  charged  with 
a  sacred  meaning,  rather  than  those 
which  embody  a  whim  of  the  moment, 
and  will  pass  away  with  the  occasion 
that  spawned  them ;  to  preach  like  a 
good  though  old-fashioned  book,  rather 
than  to  brawl  like  a  loud-voiced  stump- 
orator.  If  the  church  is  to  be  turned 
into  a  theatre,  it  would  surely  be  better 
to  revive  the  Miracle  Plays  of  the  Mid- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  159 

die  Ages  than  to  bring  out  roaring 
farces  on  the  boards  of  the  pulpit. 
Phraseology  like  that  of  the  Kev.  Mr. 
Lyon  in  "  Felix  Holt,"  or  even  like  that 
of  the  Rev.  Habakkuk  Mucklewrath  in 
"  Old  Mortality,"  is  as  worthy  of  imita- 
tion as  language  like  the  following : — 

Certain  transactions  committed  by  the  illustrious 
Adam. 

I  lament  that  Christ's  people  are  carried  away  by 
the  slosh  of  the  learned  gentleman's  dissertations. 

Man-worship  and  ecclesiastical  bossism  ;  the  logic 
of  the  situation ;  a  swift  mental  emetic ;  a  blank 
draft  drawn  by  the  prophet ;  God  forgive  us  for 
dawdling  with  daybreak ;  you  hate  the  devil,  and  yet 
you  play  the  devil. 

Sing  Sing  and  New  York  Tombs,  and  Shoreditch, 
London,  and  Cow  Gate,  Edinburgh,  are  only  vast 
carbuncles  on  the  face  and  back  of  natural  evolu- 
tion. 

"It  cannot  be  possible,"  say  some  of  these  pul- 
pit evolutionists,  whose  brains  have  been  addled  by 
too  long  brooding  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Darwin, 
— "it  cannot  be  possible  that  you  believe  there  was 
a  Garden  of  Eden  ?" 


160  OUR  ENGLISH. 

"Yes,  just  as  much  as  I  believe  that  there  were 
roses  in  my  garden  last  season." 

"  You  don't  believe  that  the  whale  swallowed 
Jonah  ?" 

"Yes:  if  I  were  strong  enough  to  make  a  whale, 
I  could  arrange  safe  ingress  for  any  false  prophet, 
leaving  it  to  evolution  to  eject  him." 

"  Do  you  believe  that  Samson  slew  one  thou- 
sand men  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass  ?" 

"Yes;  and  he  who  assails  the  Bible  wields  the 
same  weapon." 

"  Do  you  believe  that  the  water  was  turned  into 
wine  ?" 

"  Yes ;  and  that  the  wine  now  is  turned  into 
water  with  logwood  and  strychnine.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  the  Bible  staggers  rne." 

These  sentences  come  from  a  compar- 
atively small  number  of  discourses,  but 
most  of  them  were  uttered  by  preachers 
who  "  draw  well,"  and  whose  words  are 
reported  by  the  newspapers  from  one 
end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  These 
are  extreme  cases,  no  doubt ;  but  it  is 
by  extreme  cases  that  a  tendency  may 
be  fairly  judged. 


ENGLISH  IN  TEE  PULPIT.  161 

Both  the  ecclesiastical-sentimental  and 
the  sensational  extreme  are  avoided  by 
the  best  modern  preachers.  Shunning 
theological  and  philosophical  pedantry 
in  every  form,  and  vulgarity  of  every 
species,  they  draw  their  language  from 
the  well  of  English  undefiled.  Their  ser- 
mons contain  no  words  that  the  hear- 
ers cannot  readily  understand,  and  none 
that  shock  the  sensibilities  or  offend  the 
taste.  Their  manner  in  the  pulpit  is 
simple,  straightforward,  free  from  affecta- 
tion either  solemn  or  petty.  Conscious- 
ly or  unconsciously,  they  act  on  a  maxim 
of  that  admirable  writer,  the  late  Walter 
Bagehot, — the  maxim  that  "the  knack 
in  style  is  to  write  [and  to  speak]  like 
a  human  being."  .  .  .  They  "  are  willing 
to  be  themselves,  to  write  their  own 
thoughts  in  their  own  words,  in  the 
simplest  words,  in  the  words  wherein 
11 


162  OUR  ENGLISH. 

they  were  thought."  They  utter  their 
words,  I  may  add,  in  their  own  manner, 
in  the  manner  in  which  they  would  nat- 
urally speak  to  other  human  beings  to 
whom  they  had  something  to  say.  By 
so  writing  and  so  speaking,  a  preacher 
may  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  many 
obstructions  to  the  free  and  efficient 
communication  of  thought  from  himself 
to  his  hearers, — obstructions  springing 
out  of  the  imperfections  of  human  lan- 
guage on  the  one  hand,  and  the  torpor 
of  human  minds  on  the  other. 

Similar  principles  apply  to  questions 
touching  the  length  of  a  sermon  or  of 
its  several  parts,  to  the  arrangement  of 
topics,  and  to  methods  of  treatment.  In 
all  these  matters,  the  successful  preacher 
(successful  in  the  best  sense)  knows 
how  to  adjust  each  discourse  to  his 
hearers,  to  awaken  their  interest  in  the 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  163 

beginning,  and  to  fix  their  attention 
throughout, — to  fix  it  so  firmly  that  the 
impression  is  stamped  upon  the  mem- 
ory. 

Such  a  preacher  knows  that,  if  he 
would  hold  his  own  against  the  plat- 
form, against  books,  magazines,  and 
newspapers,  he  must  be  short  and  to 
the  point,  must  in  his  first  sentence 
strike  the  key-note  of  his  discourse,  and 
must  k:eep  that  note  ringing  in  the  ear. 
Amid  the  volleys  of  words  from  lay 
preachers  of  every  calibre,  he  must  not 
only  have  something  to  say,  but  he  must 
say  that  something  as  briefly  and  vig- 
orously as  is  consistent  with  perfect 
clearness  and  perfect  taste,  and  in  as 
orderly  a  manner  as  is  consistent  with 
ease  and  flexibility  of  expression.  "  As 
a  marksman,"  says  Cardinal  Newman, 
"  aims  at  the  target  and  its  bull's-eye, 


164  OUR  ENGLISH. 

and  at  nothing  else,  so  the  preacher  must 
have  a  definite  point  before  him,  which 
he  has  to  hit.  So  much  is  contained  for 
his  direction  in  this  simple  maxim,  that 
duly  to  enter  into  it  and  use  it  is  half 
the  battle ;  and  if  he  mastered  nothing 
else,  still  if  he  really  mastered  as  much 
as  this,  he  would  know  all  that  was  im- 
perative for  the  due  discharge  of  his 
office." 

I  shall  not  venture  to  guess  how  many 
of  last  Sunday's  sermons  will  bear  Car- 
dinal Newman's  test;  how  many  of  the 
preachers  on  that  day  had  a  definite 
point  before  them,  never  lost  sight  of  it 
themselves,  and  never  let  those  whom 
they  addressed  lose  sight  of  it ;  or  how 
many  even  so  much  as  know  what  is 
meant  by  a  definite  point. 

Those  who  have  yet  to  learn  the 
advantages  of  definiteness  in  preaching 


ENGLISH  IN   THE  PULPIT.  165 

may  study  with  profit  the  career  of  the  fa- 
mous Dr.  Chalmers,  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  scarcely  less  famous  Edward  Irving. 
Chalmers,  says  Carlyle,  was  a  man  "  of 
little  culture,  of  narrow  sphere,  all  his 
life;"  Irving  was  a  man  of  broad  cult- 
ure, and  had  "infinitely  more  thoughts" 
than  Chalmers:  but  Irving's  thoughts 
did  not,  as  Chalmers's  did,  all  tend  one 
way.  Chalmers's  discourses  "  were  usu- 
ally the  triumphant  en-rush  of  one  idea 
with  its  satellites  and  supporters;  but 
Irving's  wanted  in  definite  head  and 
backbone,  so  that  on  arriving  you  might 
see  clearly  where  and  how."  Irving, 
in  a  word,  had  all  but  the  one  thing 
needful ;  and  Chalmers  had  that  one 
thing  in  full  measure.  .These  famous 
preachers  differed  as  widely  in  the  qual- 
ity of  their  success  as  in  character 
and  mental  equipment.  Irving  blazed 


166  OUR  ENGLISH. 

like  a  meteor  in  the  London  sky  for  a 
while,  but  at  last  went  out  in  darkness 
and  delusion ;  Chalmers  illuminated  the 
Church  of  Scotland  through  all  the  years 
of  his  ministry  with  a  fixed  and  steady 
light.  Irving  was  a  striking  phenome- 
non ;  Chalmers  was,  and  still  is,  a  pow- 
erful influence  for  good. 

Not  a  few  modern  sermons  cannot 
be  concentrated  into  a  definite  proposi- 
tion,— some  because  they  contain  noth- 
ing but  spectral  generalities,  such  as 
haunt  men  who  have  no  real  thing  to 
say;  some  because,  though  a  number  of 
propositions  are  hinted  at,  no  one  of 
them  is  developed  or  pressed  home. 
Some  sermons  are  born  of  a  metaphor, 
have  no  existence  outside  of  that  meta- 
phor, and  at  last  "  leave  their  little  lives 
in  air."  Others  have  their  being  in  a 
refrain,  caught  from  the  text,  and  owing 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  167 

such  impressiveness  as  it  has  to  persist- 
ent repetition,  which  soon  becomes  "  like 
a  tale  of  little  meaning,  though  the  words 
are  strong."  Some  are  "  pulpit -efforts," 
in  which  the  struggle  to  produce  "a  great 
sermon  "  keeps  the  preacher  from  saying 
anything,  small  or  great,  that  is  worth 
listening  to.  Some  have  a  literary  air, 
as  if  pains  had  been  taken  with  the  sen- 
tences as  collocations  of  words  rather 
than  as  embodiments  of  thought.  There 
are  ministers  who  preach  moral  essays 
about  virtue, — essays  excellent  in  doc- 
trine and  intention,  but  vague  and  aim- 
less :  the  gun  is  good,  but  it  is  as  likely 
to  hit  one  thing  as  another. 

Sermons  that  lack  defiuiteness,  either 
because  they  leave  out  the  essential  or 
because  they  put  in  the  unessential, 
may  do  good  to  some  hearers.  The  seed 
they  scatter  may  take  root  somewhere; 


168  OUR  ENGLISH. 

but  often  the  "good  things,"  as  the 
phrase  goes,  which  are  remembered,  are 
not  those  which  a  conscientious  preach- 
er would  choose  to  be  remembered  by. 
Such  a  preacher,  for  example,  would 
hardly  be  edified  by  compliments  to  a 
striking  simile  in  his  morning's  dis- 
course, to  his  graphic  pictures  of  Orien- 
tal life,  to  his  picturesque  account  of  the 
dissipations  of  Corinth,  or  even  to  the 
ingenuity  of  his  reasoning  against  this 
or  that  heresy. 

To  preach  like  a  human  being  address- 
ing other  human  beings  for  a  definite 
purpose  is  much,  but  it  is  not  all.  The 
sermon  may  still  be  dull,  cold,  ineffec- 
tive,— may  convince  the  understanding 
without  warming  the  heart,  moving  the 
will,  or  affecting  in  any  practical  way 
desires,  purposes,  or  acts.  "I  am  sure," 
writes  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks,  "that  many 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  169 

men,  who,  if  they  came  to  preach  once 
in  a  great  while  in  the  midst  of  other 
occupations,  would  preach  with  reality 
and  fire,  are  deadened  to  their  sacred 
work  by  their  constant  intercourse  with 
sacred  things.  Their  constant  dealing 
with  the  truth  makes  them  less  power- 
ful to  bear  the  truth  to  others,  as  a  pipe 
through  which  the  water  always  flows 
collects  its  sediment,  and  is  less  fit  to 
let  more  water  through."  "Generali- 
ties in  thought."  writes  Professor  Austin 

O         / 

Phelps  (in  "The  Theory  of  Preaching"), 
"naturally  take  on  hackneyed  forms  in 
style.  These  flow  in  monotonous  suc- 
cession, like  the  fall  of  a  mill-stream. 
Weigh  them  down  with  a  sympathetic 
delivery,  and  you  will  have  the  clerical 
humdrum  in  comical  perfection.  Hence 
have  arisen  dull,  ponderous,  indolent, 
corpulent  bodies  of  divinity  in  sermons, 


170  OUR  ENGLISH. 

which  remind  one  of  a  child's  first  at- 
tempts at  composition  on  duty,  friend- 
ship, truth,  education,  industry,  time, 
eternity." 

Such  "  performances  "  may  be  termed 
sermons,  if  by  a  sermon  is  meant  a  dis- 
course in  a  church  on  some  moral  or  re- 
ligious topic,  with  a  text  as  its  head- 
piece; but  they  lack  that  which  is  the 
essence  of  a  good  sermon,  as  of  every 
other  form  of  discourse  that  aims  at  any- 
thing beyond  mere  information.  They 
lack  life.  "  Be  alive,"  Carlyle  writes  to 
his  brother  John ;  "  as  my  Shrewsbury 
coachman  told  a  Methodist  parson;  'be 
alive;'  all  is  included  in  that." 

In  listening  to  sermons  from  preach- 
ers of  various  Protestant  denominations, 
and  in  examining  such  sermons  as  have 
fallen  in  my  way,  I  have  found  abun- 
dant evidence  tending  to  support  the 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  171 

views  I  Lave  expressed.  Of  two  ser- 
mons equally  valuable  in  point  of  sub- 
stance, that  proves  to  be  the  better 
which  deals  with  one  definite  subject, 
and  only  one,  deals  with  it  methodical- 
ly, and  in  language  like  that  used  by  lay 
writers  and  speakers  of  the  best  class, 
and  dwells  upon  the  central  idea  of  it 
long  enough  and  strongly  enough  and 
warmly  enough  to  make  it  felt  as  well 
as  understood.  The  parts  of  the  less 
admirable  as  well  as  of  the  more  ad- 
mirable discourses  which  stand  out  from 
the  rest  in  memory  are  the  simplest  ones, 
the  most  pointed,  the  most  concrete, 
those  most  like  the  familiar  talk  of  one 
human  being  with  another  human  being, 
whom  he  earnestly  desires  to  influence. 

The  sermons,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
which  it  was  most  difficult  to  hold 
the  attention,  were  those  that  roamed 


172  OUR  ENGLISH. 

over  a  wide  field,  with  no  clearly  de- 
fined purpose  or  destination  in  view ; 
or  those  that  circled  round  the  text, 
like  a  moth  about  a  candle,  which  it 
could  not  keep  away  from  but  which 
did  it  more  harm  than  good ;  or  those 
that  sluggishly  brought  into  view  the 
small  commonplaces  that  lie  within  a 
large  one, — like  a  nest  of  empty  boxes. 
The  longest  sermons  were  the  worst 
ones,  not  only  because  they  were  long, 
— and  "  length  is  a  fatal  enemy  to  the 
sublime," — but  also  because  their  length 
was  largely  owing  to  the  preacher's  ap- 
parent inability  to  exclude  matters  that 
belonged  in  some  other  sermon,  to  avoid 
redundancies  and  needless  repetitions,*  to 

*  "  It  will  surprise  any  one  who  has  not  made 
the  experiment,"  writes  President  Robinson,  "  to 
find  how  difficult  it  is  to  select,  out  of  any  two 
hundred  of  a  man's  best  written  sermons,  twenty- 
five  in  which  there  are  no  repeated  thoughts." 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  173 

leave  out  introductions  that  introduced 
nothing  or  introduced  too  much,  conclu- 
sions that  were  no  conclusions,  since  there 
had  been  no  argument,  or  digressions 
which  never  came  back  to  the  starting- 
point. 

How,  it  remains  to  ask,  shall  a  preach- 
er provide  himself  with  the  means  of 
communicating  the  truth  to  his  hearers 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  interest  and  im- 
press them  ? 

If  it  be  true  that  style  and  man  are 
one,  sermon  and  preacher  must  be  one. 
Whatever  builds  up  the  preacher's  be- 
ing, whatever  broadens  and  deepens,  il- 
luminates and  inspires  his  personality, 
will  tell  upon  his  sermons,  and  will  tell 
for  much  if  he  resolves  that  it  shall.  It 
behooves  him  to  make  himself  a  man, 
and  then  to  see  to  it  that  his  man- 


174:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

hood  strengthens  and  shines  through 
his  written  and  his  spoken  work,  and 
that  he  is  felt  as  a  personal  force  behind 
his  sermons,  as  Jonathan  Edwards  and 
Whitefield,  —  for  we  cannot  place  our 
ideals  too  hiffh, — Chalmers  and  Robert 

O      ' 

Hall,  Channing  and  Frederick  Robert- 
son, were  felt  in  the  pulpit ;  and  as 
John  Adams  and  Webster,  Emerson  and 
Carlyle,  were  felt  out  of  the  pulpit.  No 
course  of  life  that  emasculates  a  man  can 
be  good  for  him,  or  for  those  who  look 
to  him  for  moral  and  spiritual  guidance. 
If  a  theological  school  tends  to  impair 
mental  virility,  the  student  should  leave 
it.  If  pastoral  visits,  intercourse  with 
brother  ministers,  or  the  habits  of  a  re- 
cluse, have  this  tendency,  they  should  be 
given  up.  If  a  minister  sees  so  much  of 
the  sick  and  the  sorrowing  that  his  own 
bodily  or  spiritual  health  is  impaired,  he 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  175 

should  take  a  course  of  joy.  Whatever 
his  special  circumstances,  he  should  give 
himself  invigorating  discipline,  like  that 
which  comes  unsought  to  lawyers,  doc- 
tors, and  men  of  business, —  discipline 
which  a  man  gets  while  measuring  him- 
self directly  with  his  fellows  in  the 
struggle  for  a  livelihood. 

It  is  nobody's  interest  to  expose  a 
preacher's  sophistry  or  to  puncture  his 
rhetoric.  He  may  go  on  committing  the 
same  faults — whether  in  argument  or  in 
grammar — Sunday  after  Sunday,  and  in- 
cense will  still  rise  from  sewing-circles 
and  vestry  tea-parties.  If  criticisms  are 
made,  he  is  the  last  person  to  hear 
them ;  for  the  hard-headed  deacon  who 
roughly  tells  the  truth  about  a  sermon 
which  he  has  just  heard,  exists  chiefly  in 
novels.  In  a  theological  seminary,  as  in 
college,  a  student  may  breathe  an  air 


176  OUR  ENGLISH. 

charged  with  as  much  criticism  as  is 
good  for  him;  but  when  he  enters  the 
ministry,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  re- 
ceive no  serious  criticism  unless  and  un- 
til he  is  so  fortunate  as  to  marry  a 
woman  who  has  the  seusa  to  see  his 
weaknesses  and  the  courage  to  point 
them  out  to  him.  "I  have  heard,"  said 
Emerson,  in  his  address  on  "  The  Ameri- 
can Scholar,"  "I  have  heard  it  said  that 
the  clergy — who  are  always  more  uni- 
versally than  any  other  class  the  schol- 
ars of  their  day — are  addressed  as  wom- 
en ;  that  the  rough,  spontaneous  conver- 
sation of  men  they  do  not  hear,  but  only 
a  mincing  and  diluted  speech." 

Mr.Galton,  in  his  work  on  "Hereditary 
Genius,"  summing  up  the  result  of  his 
reading  in  clerical  biographies,  declares 
that  "A  gently  complaining  and  fatigued 
spirit  is  that  in  which  Evangelical  Di- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  177 

vines  are  very  apt  to  pass  their  days." 
"These  words,"  adds  Dr.  Brooks,  "tell 
perfectly  a  story  that  we  all  know  who 
have  been  intimate  with  many  ministers. 
That  which  ought  to  be  the  manliest  of 
all  professions  has  a  tendency,  practically, 
to  make  men  unmanly."  Hence,  minis- 
ters are,  or  have  been  until  very  recently, 
placed  by  the  community  in  a  class  by 
themselves,  as  if  they  were  different  from 
other  men.  They  have  been  treated  like 
persons  exceptionally  weak,  in  whose  fa- 
vor discriminations  had  to  be  made.  It 
has  been  taken  for  granted  that  they 
were  not  above  accepting  help  of  any 
kind  from  any  quarter;  and  magazines, 
newspapers,  even  clothes,  have  been  of- 
fered to  them  at  reduced  prices. 

These  badges  of  inferiority  were  al- 
ways offensive  to  the  stronger  men  of 
the  profession,  and  have  been  shaken  off 
12 


178  OUR  ENGLISH. 

by  them.  To  shake  them  off  altogether, 
it  is  only  necessary  that  the  clergy  as  a 
body  should  will  to  do  so.  If  a  minister 
finds  that  his  salary  is  so  small  that  he 
cannot  make  both  ends  meet,  without 
either  starving,  or  becoming  dependent 
upon  public  or  private  charity,  let  him 
call  a  parish  meeting,  and  frankly  preach 
to  his  people  from  the  text, "  The  labor- 
er is  worthy  of  his  hire."  If  that  expedi- 
ent fails,  he  may  seek  some  other  field 
of  usefulness.  He  should  steadfastly  re- 
sist the  tendency  of  a  calling  that  has  so 
much  to  do  witli  books  and  with  invalids, 
— the  tendency  to  dwarf  and  impoverish 
character.  He  should  constantly  bear  in 
mind  that  he  whose  own  speech  is  strong 
and  direct  is  not  addressed  in  "  mincing 
and  diluted  speech"  by  others,  that  vigor 
in  the  pulpit  is  respected  by  vigor  out 
of  it.  He  should  know  and  feel  that 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  179 

vigor  in  a  sermon  comes  from  vigor  in 
the  preacher,  clearness  of  statement  and 
cogency  of  reasoning  in  a  sermon  from 
the  clear  and  well-trained  mind  of  the 
preacher,  and  the  power  of  a  sermon  to 
move  hearts  and  determine  action  from 
sincerity  of  belief  and  intensity  of  feel- 
ing. He  only  who  keeps  the  springs  of 
his  own  life  full  can  hope  to  freshen  and 
fertilize  the  lives  of  others. 

The  preacher  who  means  that  the 
springs  of  his  life  shall  be  full  will  not 
confine  his  reading  to  sermons  and  re- 
ligious journals,  or  even  to  theological 
treatises  and  to  moral  and  ethical  philos- 
ophy. He  will  keep  up,  not  only  his 
Greek  and  his  Hebrew,  but  his  knowl- 
edge of  every  kind.  He  will  follow  the 
course  of  the  natural  sciences,  so  far,  at 
least,  as  they  .  deal  with  fundamental 
principles  and  general  results.  He  will 


180  OUR  ENGLISH. 

find  food  for  his  mind  in  heathen  as 
well  as  in  Christian  philosophers,  and 
in  books  written  by  unbelievers  as  well 
as  in  those  written  by  believers.  He 
will  draw  inspiration  from  great  poets, 
and  knowledge  of  human  nature  from 
great  novelists.  No  book  that  he  reads 
but  will  have  a  message  for  him,  and 
through  him  for  his  hearers. 

Ministers  whose  culture  is  broad  as 
well  as  deep  are  to  be  found  in  all 
denominations;  but  one  would  hardly 
venture  to  affirm  that  they  form  either 
the  exceptions  or  the  rule  in  any  de- 
nomination. It  is  to  be  hoped,  however, 
that  the  total  number  of  ministers  of 
culture  is  larger  now  than  it  was  in  1827, 
when  Dr.  Samuel  Miller,  Professor  of 
Ecclesiastical  History  in  the  Theological 
Seminary  at  Princeton,  published  his 
"Letters  on  Clerical  Manners  and  Hab- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  181 

its."  "It  is,"  writes  Dr.  Miller,  "as 
wonderful  as  it  is  humiliating  bow  en- 
tirely habits  of  study  are  abandoned  by 
many  clerical  men,  almost  as  soon  as 
what  may  be  called  their  initiatory 
course  is  closed.  From  that  time,  they 
seem  to  think  it  sufficient  if  they  read 
and  think  enough  each  week  to  address 

O 

their  people  twice  from  the  pulpit  on  the 
Sabbath,  in  a  commonplace  way.  Thence- 
forward, they  make  no  solid  addition  to 
their  stock  of  knowledge.  Their  minds 
become  lean  and  inactive.  Instead  of 
causing  '  their  profiting  to  appear  unto 
all'  every  time  they  enter  the  sacred  desk, 
they  become  more  and  more  jejune  and 
uninteresting.  With  the  habit,  they  lose 
all  taste  for  study.  Their  leisure  hours 
are  spent  in  worldly  cares  or  in  gossiping 
rather  than  among  their  books.  They 
invite  premature  intellectual  torpor  and 


182  OUR  ENGLISH. 

debility.  They  cease  to  instruct  their 
hearers,  and  soon  become  a  dead  weight, 
instead  of  a  comfort  and  a  blessing  to 
their  congregations.  Such  is  the  history 
of  many  a  minister  who  had  good  natural 
talents,  and  concerning  whom  the  expec- 
tations of  his  friends  were  raised,  but 
who  could  never  be  persuaded  to  love 
study." 

The  love  of  study  is,  "however,  not 
enough  to  keep  a  preacher's  mind  from 
becoming  "lean  and  inactive."  A  man 
whose  function  it  is  to  tell  other  men 
how  to  live  will,  if  he  is  wise,  bring  him- 
self within  the  influence  of  currents  of 
life  that  do  not  reach  the  surface  in 
books.  He  will  know  what  the  people 
of  his  parish  are  doing  and  thinking, 
what  temptations  are  most  dangerous  to 
them,  what  trials  most  severe.  He  will 
watch  the  course  of  public  events  every- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  183 

where.  He  will  occasionally  go  to  a 
great  city,  in  order  to  receive  an  impulse 
from  the  tides  of  human  activity  that 
pour  through  unfamiliar  streets.  He 
will  meet  men  and  women  of  all  grades 
of  intelligence,  and  will  meet  them  on 
equal  terms. 

If  at  any  time  secular  newspapers  and 
reviews  busy  themselves  with  a  religious 
topic, —  such  as  the  nature  of  evil,  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  the  origin 
of  man,  or  his  future  after  death, — the 
wise  preacher  will  not  keep  silent  until 
popular  interest  in  the  topic  has  died 
out.  If  public  attention  is  fixed  upon 
some  flagrant  instance  of  corruption  in 
office,  dishonesty  in  business,  or  moral 
cowardice  in  public  life,  he  will  not  put 
off  preaching  about  political  corruption, 
business  dishonesty,  or  moral  cowardice, 
until  the  topic  has  again  become  an 


184  OUR  ENGLISH. 

abstract  one,  but  will  seize  the  occasion 
to  press  the  lesson  of  the  day  upon  his 
hearers.  He  will  look  at  current  ques- 
tions with  calm  eyes,  will  lift  them  upon 
the  high  ground  of  principle,  and  will  add 
something  important  to  what  everybody 
is  saying. 

Not  content  with  the  study  of  books 
and  of  men,  a  preacher  who  means  to 
make  himself  thoroughly  useful  to  his 
people  will — by  farming  or  gardening, 
by  practising  some  handicraft,  or  study- 
ing some  science  experimentally  —  cul- 
tivate an  acquaintance  with  practical 
things;  and  he  will  seek  in  nature  and 
in  art  inspirations  and  sympathies  that 
neither  books  nor  men  supply. 

All  this  he  will  do  for  general  cult- 
ure; but  every  part  of  his  experience 
will  contribute  to  the  excellence  of  his 
sermons,  and  none  the  less  surely  be- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  185 

cause  it  does  so  indirectly.  What  Dry- 
den  says  of  the  translator  applies  with 
redoubled  force  to  the  sermon  -  writer. 
"There  are  many,"  writes  this  great  au- 
thor, —  and  the  excellence  of  his  own 
prose  bears  testimony  to  the  value  of 
his  counsel, — "  there  are  many  who  un- 
derstand Greek  and  Latin,  and  yet  are 
ignorant  of  their  mother  -  tongue.  The 
proprieties  and  delicacies  of  the  English 
are  known  to  few ;  it  is  impossible  even 
for  a  good  wit  to  understand  and  prac- 
tise them,  without  the  help  of  a  liberal 
education,  long  reading,  and  digesting  of 
those  few  good  authors  we  have  amongst 
us,  the  knowledge  of  men  and  manners, 
the  freedom  of  habitudes  and  conversa- 
tion with  the  best  company  of  both  sex- 
es; and,  in  short,  without  wearing  off  the 
rust  which  he  contracted  while  he  was 
laying  in  a  stock  of  learning." 


186  OUR  ENGLISH. 

There  are  preachers,  I  fear,  whose  ser- 
mons have  DO  very  close  connection  with 
their  lives  or  their  thoughts.  A  minis- 
ter of  this  class  makes  no  preparation 
with  the  pen  or  with  the  mind  until  the 
day  before  the  sermon  is  to  be  delivered. 
At  last  he  chooses  a  text.  The  next 
step  is  to  read  what  the  commentators 
have  to  say  on  the  text;  the  next,  to 
find  in  the  volumes  of  sermons  that 
crowd  his  shelves  what  other  preachers 
have  said  about  it.  Having  thus  ac- 
cumulated a  mass  of  material,  such  as  it 
is,  he  proceeds  to  write, — for  he  has  no 
time  to  think  for  himself,  or  even  to  ar- 
range in  his  mind  the  thoughts  he  has 
collected  from  others.  "Writinsr  he  en- 

O 

joys;  for,  like  Mr.  Sherlock  in  "Felix 
Holt,"  he  is  "not  insensible  to  the  pleas- 
ure of  turning  sentences  successfully." 
Like  Mr.  Sherlock,  he  can  "  take  coffee 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  187 

[or  tea]   and  sit  up  late,  and   perhaps 
produce  something  rather  fine." 

Very  different  from  these  manufact- 
ured articles  is  the  sermon  that  leaves 
a  mark  upon  the  lives  of  those  that  hear 
it.  Such  a  sermon  is  not  a  manufacture, 
but  a  growth  rooted  in  character  and 
developed  by  culture.  It  may  have  been 
written  early  or  late,  slowly  or  rapidly, 
or  it  may  not  have  been  written  at  all ; 
but,  whatever  the  method  of  compo- 
sition, the  sermon  is  the  result  of  the 
original  action  of  a  mind  that  is  work- 
ing with  all  its  energies  towards  a  defi- 
nite object.  In  such  a  sermon,  this  or 
that  word  will  be  taken, — not  because  it 
is  either  a  fine  or  a  coarse  word,  a  plain 
or  a  "hard"  one,  not  because  it  has  served 
in  many  sermons  already,  nor  yet  be- 
cause it  was  never  in  good  company  be- 
fore,— but  because  it  is  the  one  word  that 


188  OUR  ENGLISH. 

conveys  the  thought  clearly  and  impres- 
sively to  those  for  whom  it  is  intended. 
If  a  great  preacher  uses  a  metaphor,  he 
does  so,  not  in  order  to  adorn  his  dis- 
course, but  because  the  figure  presents 
his  thought  clearly  and  vividly.  We 
may  say  of  him  what  Cardinal  Newman 
says  of  the  great  author :  "  If  he  is  brief, 
it  is  because  few  words  suffice ;  when  he 
is  lavish  of  them,  still  each  word  has  its 
mark,  and  aids,  not  embarrasses,  the  vig- 
orous march  of  his  elocution.  .  .  .  He  is 
one  who  has  something  to  say  and 
knows  how  to  say  it.  ...  He  is  master 
of  the  twofold  Logos,  the  thought  and 
the  word,  distinct,  but  inseparable  from 
each  other.  He  may,  if  so  be,  elaborate 
his  compositions,  or  he  may  pour  out  his 
improvisations,  but  in  either  case  he  has 
but  one  aim,  which  he  keeps  steadily  be- 
fore him,  and  is  conscientious  and  single- 


ENGLISH  IN  THE  PULPIT.  189 

minded  in  fulfilling.  That  aim  is  to 
give  forth  what  he  has  within  him ;  and 
from  his  very  earnestness  it  comes  to 
pass  that,  whatever  be  the  splendor  of 
his  diction  or  the  harmony  of  his  peri- 
ods, he  has  with  him  the  charm  of  an 
incommunicable  simplicity.  Whatever 
be  his  subject,  high  or  low,  he  treats  it 
suitably  and  for  its  own  sake." 


V. 
COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH. 


PESSIMISTS  declare — and  not  altogether 
without  reason — that  the  art  of  conver- 
sation is  among  the  lost  arts.  They 
lament  that  we  have  no  good  talkers, 
like  Addison,  Johnson,  or  Coleridge,  and 
no  salons,  such  as  gave  France  social  pre- 
eminence in  the  last  century.  With  all 
our  talk  about  women's  rights  and  wom- 
en's education,  what,  they  ask,  have  we 
in  place  of  Margaret  Fuller's  classes  in 
social  science  ?  With  all  our  speeches 
and  speech-makers,  where,  in  the  younger 
generation,  shall  we  find  the  easy,  grace- 
ful, colloquial  touch  which  Emerson  and 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  191 

Wendell  Phillips  had,  which  Dr.  Holmes 
and  Mr.  Lowell  have?  We  "descend  to 
meet,"  as  Emerson  complains;  and  we 
meet,  not  to  exchange  thoughts,  fancies, 
witticisms,  but  to  dance,  eat,  drink,  to 
discuss  the  weather,  the  fashions,  the 
latest  engagement,  or  to  listen  to  set 
speeches  on  stated  topics.  Many  a  man 
is  too  tired,  many  a  woman  too  anxious, 
almost  every  one  too  self-conscious,  for 
genuine  social  intercourse.  In  the  family 
circle,  it  is  the  grown  people  who  are  seen 
but  not  heard.  The  talk  of  the  young  is 
either  learned  and  would-be  profound, 
or  puerile  and  full  of  slang,  or  all  noise 
and  giggle.  The  best  of  it  is  carried  on 
by  the  eyes. 

To  remedy  the  deplorable  state  of  the 
social  world  which  pessimists  picture  in 
these  exaggerated  terms,  it  has  been  seri- 
ously proposed  to  have  our  colleges  teach 


192  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  art  of  conversation,  as  some  of  them 
now  teach,  or  attempt  to  teach,  journal- 
ism and  the  art  of  oral  discussion.  The 
experiment  might  be  worth  making,  and 
it  would,  no  doubt,  in  proper  hands,  be 
to  a  certain  extent  successful.  An  intel- 
ligent teacher  might,  at  least,  collect  raw 
material  for  conversation  from  reading, 
observation,  and  reflection  upon  what  had 
been  read  or  observed,  might  enlarge  and 
purify  his  pupils'  vocabulary,  and  might 
give  them  facility,  if  not  felicity,  of  ex- 
pression. 

Such  instruction  would  naturally  bear 
most  fruit  in  an  institution  in  which  both 
sexes  were  represented :  but  even  there 
the  social  faculty  would  be  developed 
outside  of  the  class-room  rather  than  in 
it;  at  times  when  students  were  drawn 
to  one  another  by  natural  affinity  rath- 
er than  when  they  were  brought  to- 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  193 

getlier  by  the  college  authorities ;  at 
times  when  they  chose  their  own  top- 
ics rather  than  when  they  talked  on 
prescribed  ones.  The  effort  to  make  con- 
versation a  literary  exercise  would  inev- 
itably impair  the  freedom  which  is  the 
charm  of  social  intercourse :  for  the  in- 
stant a  talker  begins  to  pay  close  at- 
tention to  correctness  of  language  and 
harmony  of  periods,  he  is  in  danger  of 
becoming  dull ;  the  instant  he  aims  at 

O  ' 

the  literary  development  of  an  idea  or 
the  logical  maintenance  of  a  proposition, 
he  is  in  danger  of  becoming  bookish  or 

o  o 

disputatious,  or  both.  It  is  when  he  is 
so  deeply  interested  in  his  subject  or  in 
his  company  as  to  forget  himself,  it  is  in 
moments  when  a  strong  feeling  is  dom- 
inant, that  he  is  at  his  best;  but  such 
moments  would  be  rare  in  a  class-room 
organized  for  instruction  in  conversation. 
13 


194:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

If  question  and  answer,  remark  and  re- 
joinder, ever  fly  fast  under  the  eye  of 
a  teacher,  it  must  be  when  he  pays 
more  attention  to  the  substance  of  what 
is  said  than  to  the  form  of  expression. 
The  art  of  conversation  can  be  taught, 
if  at  all,  not  as  a  thing  by  itself,  but  as 
an  incident  to  something  else;  and  it 
can  be  taught  with  most  advantage  to 
a  class  small  enough  to  be  treated,  not 
as  an  audience  to  be  lectured  to,  but  as 
so  many  individual  minds.  In  oral  as 
in  written  work,  a  teacher  may  do  much 
for  his  pupils'  English,  if  he  does  not 
undertake  to  do  too  much. 

Perhaps,  however,  more  may  be  done 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  social  faculty 
before  a  boy  goes  to  college  than  after- 
wards. In  this  matter,  as  in  others, 
physical  conditions  are  important;  for, 
other  things  being  equal,  a  child  who 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  195 

abounds  in  animal  spirits  and  nervous 
energy  will  talk  better  than  his  blood- 
less companions.  In  iamily  life,  too 
much  repression  of  young  people  is  as 
bad  as  too  little.  A  mean  is  attainable 
between  the  practice  of  forcing  children, 
as  our  ancestors  did,  to  sit  like  deaf- 
mutes  in  the  presence  of  their  elders, 
and  that  of  suppressing  the  parents  alto- 
gether, as  is  often  done  nowadays,  while 
the  children  gabble  in  language  caught 
from  an  ignorant  nurse.  A  child's  table 

O 

Eno-lish  should  be  looked  after  almost 

O 

as  closely  as  his  table  manners,  but  not 
so  closely  as  to  make  him  feel  that  he 
is  nagged.  His  books  should  be  scruti- 
nized, not  only  as  sources  of  mental  and 
moral  strength  or  weakness,  but  also  as 
influences  tending  to  form  habits  of  cor- 
rect, vigorous,  and  agreeable  expression, 
or  to  retard  the  formation  of  such  hab- 


196  OUR  ENGLISH. 

its.  To  choose  all  his  playmates  for 
him  may  not  be  feasible;  but  intimacies 
may  be  fostered  with  children  who  come 
from  cultivated  stock  and  whose  Eng- 
lish is  looked  after  at  home.  In  the 
choice  of  teachers,  preference  may  be 
given  to  those  whose  language  is  least 
open  to  criticism.  In-door  games  which 
give  practice  in  the  use  of  words,  or  en- 
large the  vocabulary,  may  be  favored 
rather  than  those  which  consist  of  little 
but  noise.  Children,  in  a  word,  may 
and  should  be  guarded  and  guided  in 
the  matter  of  English  at  every  point;  for 
at  every  point,  as  has  often  been  said, 
the  foes  of  gopd  English  encompass 
them. 

To  young  men  and  women  who  have 
learned  to  talk  pretty  well  at  home, 
school  and  college  may  give  a  help- 
ing hand  without  appearing  to  do  so. 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  197 

They  may  infuse  life  into  the  intercourse 
between  teacher  and  pupil ;  confirm  hab- 
its of  simplicity  and  fluency  of  speech ; 
encourage  clubs  in  which  conversation 
plays  a.  leading  part ;  recommend  books 
that  add  to  a  reader's  stock  of  words 
and  show  him  the  value  of  naturalness 
and  individuality  in  expression ;  distin- 
guish the  good  parts  of  a  classic  from 
the  parts  not  so  good,  and  the  true  notes 
in  a  piece  of  current  writing  from  the 
false  ones ;  point  out  the  merits  and  the 
defects  of  a  pupil's  own  work,  spoken 
as  well  as  written ;  and  keep  constantly 
before  his  mind  the  supreme  importance 
of  saying  what  he  has  to  say  in  pure 
and  idiomatic  English. 

After  all,  however,  parents  and  teach- 
ers can  do  comparatively  little  towards 
the  production  of  good  talkers, — far  less, 
indeed,  than  they  can  towards  the  pro- 


198  OUR  ENGLISH. 

duction  of  good  writers.  Young  people 
who  have  had  excellent  instruction  in 
writing,  and  none  at  all  in  talking,  may, 
nevertheless,  talk  better  than  they  write: 
for,  as  Pascal  says,  "  II  y  en  a  qui  parlent 
bien  et  qui  n'ecrivent  pas  bieii.  C'est 
que  le  lieu,  1'assistance  les  echauffent, 
et  tirent  de  leur  esprit  plus  qu'ils  n'y 
trouvent  sans  cette  chaleur."  A  man- 
uscript may  be  held  before  the  eye  as 
long  as  is  necessary  for  purposes  of  criti- 
cism, and  it  should  be  criticised  in  cold 
blood :  but  spoken  words  are  gone  with 
the  breath  that  uttered  them;  they  must 
be  criticised,  if  at  all,  while  they  are  on 
the  wing,  and  to  criticise  them  then  is  to 
stop  the  flight  in  which  their  life  con- 
sists. It  is  only  in  Rabelais,  and  in 
the  travels  of  Mandeville  as  related  by 
Addison,  that  words  flow  as  freely  after 
they  have  been  thawed  as  before  they 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  199 

were  frozen, — a  phenomenon  which  even 
the  phonograph  may  never  fully  repro- 
duce. 

In  talking,  even  more  than  in  writing, 
it  is  practice  which  makes  perfect.  A 
talker  may  be  helped  in  various  ways, 
but  he  must  form  himself  by  talking. 
"Conference  maketh  a  ready  man,"  says 
Bacon  ;  and  readiness,  if  not  the  essence 
of  good  conversation,  is  one  of  its  essen- 
tials. Other  things  are  no  doubt  desira- 
ble. Multifarious,  though  not  necessarily 
exact  or  profound  knowledge;  ability  to 
contribute  to  the  discussion  of  every  topic 
as  it  comes  up  something  that  seems  new, 
and  to  do  so  without  pedantry  or  arro- 
gance, vulgarity  or  pertness,  without  in- 
sisting or  persisting;  tact,  or  the  gift  of 
knowing  when,  to  whom,  and  how  to  say 
this  or  that,  when  to  speak  and  when  to 
be  silent ;  the  royal  gift  of  language  that 


200  OUR  ENGLISH. 

fits  time,  place,  and  person  ;  the  royal 
gift  of  manner  that  sends  each  word  di- 
rectly and  gracefully  to  its  address;— all 
these,  not  to  speak  of  purely  intellectual 
or  moral  qualities,  the  excellent  talker 
must  have :  but  is  not  readiness  part  and 
parcel  of  each?  that  which  gives  value 
for  conversational  purposes  to  each  ?  that 
which  transmutes  ore  into  coin  that  is 
current  everywhere  ?  To  have  one's  phys- 
ical, mental,  and  spiritual  possessions  ful- 
ly in  hand  is  more  than  half  the  social 
battle,  is  it  not  ? 

To  a  ready  talker  clever  things  occur 
while  he  is  talking,  and  not  on  the  stair- 
case when  the  conversation  is  over.  His 
wits  are  always  and  altogether  at  his 
command;  what  he  knows  —  fact,  argu- 
ment, anecdote,  illustration  —  is  at  his 
tongue's  end ;  what  he  feels  he  feels 

£D  * 

promptly  and  can  express  at  once.     Out 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  201 

of  his  Lead,  at  a  touch  from  some  one  of. 
the  company,  comes  what  passes  in  that 
company  for  Minerva,  fully  armed  and 
equipped.  He  never  argues,  never  wran- 
gles, never  stagnates.  He  never  tells  a 
long  story,  or  misses  the  point  of  a  short 
one.  In  his  company,  the  dinner -hour 
is  a  "regeneration  of  body  and  mind." 
He  has  mastered  the  art  of  conversation 
as  defined  by  Lord  Beaconsfield — "to  be 
prompt  without  being  stubborn,  to  re- 
fute without  argument,  and  to  clothe 
grave  matters  in  a  motley  garb." 

Useful  to  a  talker  as  all  readiness  is, 
what  he  needs  most  is  readiness  with  col- 
loquial English.  To  accumulate  a  fund 
of  such  English,  one  should  listen  to  good 
talkers,  and  should  read  books  that  re- 
produce the  language  of  good  talkers; 
to  be.  sure  of  having  the  fund  thus  ac- 

O 

cumulated  ready  for  use,  one  must  talk 


202  .  OUR  ENGLISH. 

much,  and  must  talk  with  many  people 
on  many  subjects. 

What  is  colloquial  English?  In  what 
respect,  if  in  any,  does  it  differ  from  the 
English  of  the  platform  and  the  pulpit, 
and  from  that  of  books?  If  there  is  a 
difference,  should  it  be  removed  ?  Do  we 
praise  a  man  when  we  say  that  he  talks 
like  a  book,  or  an  orator  when  we  say 
that  he  speaks  as  if  he  were  conversing 
with  his  hearers,  or  an  author  when  we 
say  that  he  writes  as  he  talks  ? 

Other  things  being  equal,  the  best 
spoken,  like  the  best  written,  English 
is  that  which  conforms  most  closely  to 
the  language  as  used  by  men  and  wom- 
en of  culture, — a  high  standard  which  it 
is  by  no  means  easy  to  live  up  to  in  daily 
conversation.  To  keep  local  or  profes- 
sional peculiarities  out  of  one's  speech 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  203 

is  more  difficult  than  to  keep  them  out 
of  one's  manuscript.  It  is  more  diffi- 
cult, too,  to  settle  questions  of  accent  or 
of  pronunciation  than  those  of  spelling 
and  punctuation,  and  that  for  two  rea- 
sons. In  the  spoken  language,  fashions 
vary  more  rapidly  and  more  capriciously 
than  in  the  written  one ;  and  it  is  not 
always  clear  (especially  in  the  United 
States)  to  what  authority,  in  a  doubtful 
case,  an  appeal  can  be  made.  For  the 
most  part,  however,  cultivated  men  and 
women  in  English-speaking  nations  speak 
substantially  alike.  It  is  perhaps  impos- 
sible to  get  rid  of  local  characteristics 
altogether;  but  now  and  then  an  Eng- 
lishman or  a  Scotchman  is  mistaken  for 
an  American,  and  sometimes  even  an 
Englishman  fails  to  discover  a  travelling 
American's  nationality. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  differences  in  vo- 


204:  OUR  ENGLISH. 

cabulary,  intonation,  and  accent  between 
the  English  of  almost  all  well-bred  Amer- 
icans and  that  of  equally  well-bred  Eng- 
lishmen, as  there  are,  to  a  quick  ear, 
between  the  speech  of  a  man  born  and 
brought  up  in  Chicago  or  Richmond 
and  that  of  a  Philadelphia!!  or  a  Bos- 
tonian  ;  but,  these  differences  apart,  culti- 
vated men  and  women  of  -English-speak- 
ing nations  speak,  as  they  write,  the  same 


o       o 

Some  of  the  differences  between  collo- 
quial and  other  English  grow  out  of  the 
very  nature  of  speech.  One  of  these  sug- 
gests itself  at  once.  The  language  of 
conversation  should  be,  and  should  seem 
to  be,  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  A 
talker  should  abstain  from  sentences  that 
bear  the  marks  of  having  been  framed 
in  advance,  and  from  words  that  sound 
as  if  they  had  been  chosen  with  care. 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  205 

His  mind  should  seem  to  be  set  in  mo- 
tion, not  by  reading  or  reflection,  but  by 
the  impact  of  another  mind  upon  his. 
Even  Sheridan,  who  thought  out  his 
clever  things  for  the  day  before  getting 
up  in  the  morning,  had  to  lead  the  con- 
versation to  the  spot  where  his  treasures 
were  hidden.  In  order  to  do  this  with- 
out being  detected,  he  had  to  keep  his 
wits  on  the  spring;  for  if  those  with 
whom  he  talked  had  guessed  what  he 
was  doing,  his  charm  would  have  van- 
ished. As  it  was,  he  was  accounted  a 
brilliant  rather  than  an  agreeable  talker; 
there  was  a  hard,  metallic  glitter  to  his 
talk,  as  there  is  to  the  dialogues  in  his 
plays. 

Sheridan's  genius  gave  him  great  so- 
cial success;  but  who  really  enjoys  the 
society  of  "  the  conversation  man "  as 
described  by  Lord  Beacon sfiel d  ? 


206  OUR  ENGLISH. 

"His  talk  is  a  thing  apart,  got  up  be- 
fore he  enters  the  company  from  whose 
conduct  it  should  grow  out.  He  sits  in 
the  middle  of  a  large  table,  and,  with 
a  brazen  voice,  bawls  out  his  anecdotes 
about  Sir  Thomas  or  Sir  Humphry, 
Lord  Blank,  or  my  Lady  Blue.  He  is 
incessant,  yet  not  interesting;  ever  vary- 
ing, yet  always  monotonous.  Even  if 
we  are  amused,  we  are  no  more  grateful 
for  the  entertainment  than  we  are  to  the 
lamp  over  the  table  for  the  light  which 
it  universally  sheds,  and  to  yield  which 
it  was  obtained  on  purpose.  We  are 
more  gratified  by  the  slight  conversa- 
tion of  one  who  is  often  silent,  but  who 
speaks  from  his  momentary  feelings,  than 
by  all  this  hullabaloo." 

Even  if  a  would-be  Sheridan  suc- 
ceeds, his  trials,  as  Byron  tells  us,  are 
many. 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  207 

"I  must  not  quite  omit  the  talking  sage, 

Kit-Cat,  the  famous  conversationist, 
Who,  in  his  common-place  book,  had  a  page 
Prepared  each  morn   for  evenings.     'List,  oh 

list  !'— 

'Alas,  poor  ghost!' — what  unexpected  woes 
Await  those  who  have  studied  their  bons-mots. 

"  Firstly,  [sic]  they  must  allure  the  conversation 
By  many  windings  to  their  clever  clinch  ; 

And  secondly,  must  let  slip  no  occasion, 
Nor  bate  (abate)  their  hearers  of  an  inch, 

But  take  an  ell — and  make  a  great  sensation, 
If  possible  ;  and  thirdly,  never  flinch 

When  some  smart  talker  puts  them  to  the  test, 

But  seize  the  last  word,  which  no  doubt 's  the  best." 

With  ordinary  men,  preparation  in  the 
matter  of  language  betrays  itself,  as  all 
of  us  who  mix  much  with  the  social 
world  must  have  noticed.  A  person  who 
makes  such  preparation  is  like  a  hostess 
who,  having  asked  her  guests  to  take  pot- 
luck  with  the  family,  receives  them  in 
full-dress.  He  is,  we  instinctively  feel, 
taking  us  at  a  disadvantage.  We  doubt 


208  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  sincerity  of  opinions  winch  it  has 
been  found  necessary  to  formulate  in 
advance,  and  the  originality  of  sayings 
which  might  have  been  copied  from  a 
book.  The  artificial  phrase  hides  the 
natural  feeling  of  the  speaker;  he  pur- 
chases literary  excellence  by  the  loss  of 
life  as  well  as  of  truth. 

Preparation  in  the  matter  of  language 
is,  then,  to  be  discouraged ;  but  society 
would  be  duller  than  it  is  if  preparation 
of  no  kind  were  made  by  those  who, 
like  the  dead  people  in  Mr.  Crawford's 
novel,  are  "  alive  for  the  purposes  of  con- 
versation "  only.  The  rich  and  varied  life 
of  a  doctor,  a  lawyer,  or  a  man  of  busi- 
ness, supplies  him  with  topics  in  abun- 
dance ;  but  those  who  lack  such  re- 
sources are  not  to  be  blamed  if,  before 
going  out  of  an  evening,  they  take  a 
hasty  swallow  of  the  last  new  book,  or 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  209 

of  a  review  of  the  last  new  book,  or — if 
they  have  not  time  for  that — of  the  es- 
sence of  the  periodicals  of  the  month  ex- 
tracted by  a  skilful  hand  and  "  flavored 
to  suit/' 

In  New  York  and  Washington,  if  I 
am  not  misinformed,  "  seminars  "  are  pe- 
riodically held,  at  which  a  clever  wom- 
an coaches  other  clever  women  in  the 
political,  literary,  and  ethical  topics  of 
the  day.  Such  "seminars"  cannot  but 
be  for  the  advantage,  not  only  of  the 
women  they  prepare  for  social  ordeals, 
but  also  of  the  society  which  these 
women  frequent.  Each  woman  will  add 
something  of  her  own  to  the  knowl- 
edge with  which  she  has  been  crammed, 
will  at  least  put  facts  and  ideas  into 
her  own  words,  make  them  her  own  in 
some  way.  This  may  be  done  so  well 
that  one  who  is  not  in  the  secret  is  not 
14 


210  OUR  ENGLISH. 

likely  to  guess  that  each  of  several 
women  with  whom  he  has  been  talking 
drew  the  material  of  what  she  said  from 
a  common  stock  provided  at  the  after- 
noon conference. 

If  the  male  moth  of  society  should 
have  his  "  seminar  "  too,  and  should  get 
as  much  help  from  it  as  women  do,  what 
a  start  would  be  given  to  conversation, 
— as  regards,  at  least,  the  variety  and 
the  range  of  topics  discussed !  Awk- 
ward masculine  minds  would,  however, 
absorb  less  from  the  conductor  of  a 
"  seminar"  than  women  do,  would  contrib- 
ute less  of  their  own,  and  would  trust 
less  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment 
for  their  language.  The  facts  and  opin- 
ions they  had  listened  to  might  be  re- 
produced in  a  stereotyped  form,  and  thus 
they  might  lose  more  in  spontaneity 
than  they  gained  in  information.  A  dull 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  211 

man  might,  like  Mr.  George  Meredith's 
Arthur  Rhodes,  fire  "a  gun  too  big  for 
him,  of  premeditated  charging."  To  such 
a  discharge,  his  hostess,  like  Mr.  Mere- 
dith's Lady  Wathin,  might  naturally 
prefer  "  the  old  legal  anecdotes,  sure  of 
their  laugh,  and  the  citations  from  the 
manufactories  of  fun  in  the  press,  which 
were  current  and  instantly  intelligible 
to  all  her  guests,"  or  even  "  an  impromp- 
tu pun,"  if  plain  enough  to  be  promptly 
understood. 

The  importance  of  talking  or  of  seem- 
ing to  talk  extempore  is  so  great  that 
we  more  than  pardon  in  a  talker  inaccu- 
racies of  language  that  would  be  inex- 
cusable in  a  writer.  We  expect  them, 
as  a  matter  of  course ;  we  expect  such  as 
are  common  in  the  class  to  which  he  who 
makes  them  belongs:  for  there  is  no 
hard  and  fast  line  between  faults  that 


212  OUK  ENGLISH. 

may  and  faults  that  may  riot  be  commit- 
ted with  impunity.  A  circle  in  which 
it  would  be  an  unpardonable  sin  to  say 
ain't  for  isn't  or  aren't,  might  not  notice 
dorft  for  doesn't  /  and  another  which 
frowned  upon  dorft  for  doesrft,  might  not 
be  disturbed  by  "I  don't  know  as"  for  "I 
don't  know  that:"  but  almost  every  circle 
would  look  askance  at  a  conversationist 
who  never  used  who  for  w7u>m,  never 
mixed  singulars  and  plurals,  never  be- 
gan a  sentence  in  one  way  and  ended  it 
in  another,  never  broke  off  in  the  mid- 
dle of  what  he  was  saying,  never  fell  into 
slang,  never  threw  the  accent  on  a  wrong 
syllable  or  expressed  his  meaning  in- 
exactly. He  who  commits  no  offence 
against  the  conventional  rules  of  the 
language  excites  a  suspicion  that  he  has 
taken  special  precautions  against  a  pos- 
sible violation  of  them. 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  213 

We  all  know,  of  course,  that  talkers 
have  existed — still  exist,  perhaps — who 
have  acquired  the  habit  of  expressing 
themselves  off-hand  with  as  much  accu- 
racy as  ease;  but  such  cases  are  rare. 
The  easy  talker  is  usually  inexact  in  his 
English;  the  correct  one  is  stiff,  is  like 
Mr.  Thomas  Day,  the  author  of  "  Sand- 
ford  and  Merton."  "Mr.  Day,"  says  Miss 
Edgeworth,  "  always  talked  like  a  book, 
— and  I  do  believe  he  always  thought 
in  the  same  full-dress  style.  This  was 
the  result  of  the  systematic  care  he  had 
early  taken  to  make  himself  master  of 
his  native  language,  and  to  cultivate  elo- 
quence." 

Nowadayses  between  two  expressions 
of  which  one  is  a  little  more  lively  but  a 
little  less  formal  than  the  other,  good  talk- 
ers will  choose  the  less  formal,  though  it 
may  be  vulgar  in  the  eyes  of  precisians. 


214  OUR  ENGLISH. 

It  is  only  in  schools  conducted  on  the 
principles  held  by  Dickens's  Mrs.  General 
that  one  is  expected  to  say :  "  come  liitli- 
er"  instead  of  "come  liere^  "whence  did 
he  come  ?"  instead  of"  where  did  he  come 
from?"  Outside  of  sucli  schools,  the 
language  of  life,  even  though  it  be  not 
high  life,  is  better  suited  to  the  purposes 
of  conversation  than  the  language  of 
books.  In  the  days  of  brocades  and  the 
minuet,  vulgarity  was  a  bugbear;  in  the 
days  of  tulle  and  the  polka-glide,  stiff- 
ness and  formality  are  in  disfavor. 

In  conversation,  loose  sentences  are 
preferable  to  periods.  A  periodic  sen- 
tence— that  is,  a  sentence  so  framed  that 
it  keeps  a  hearer  in  suspense  about  the 
meaning  until  the  very  end — is  prob- 
ably in  the  mind  of  the  speaker,  as  a 
whole,  before  it  is  uttered ;  a  loose  sen- 
tence— that  is,  a  sentence  that  says  some- 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  215 

thing  in  the  first  clause  which  is  added 
to,  subtracted  from,  changed  in  some 
way  as  the  sentence  goes  on — is  prob- 
ably built  up  word  by  word  as  it  falls 
from  the  lips.  The  latter  has  the  fur- 
ther advantage  of  being  readily  under- 
stood. A  reader  can  go  over  a  sentence 
until  he  understands  its  meaning  as  a 
whole;  a  listener  must  catch  the  mean- 
1112:  at  once,  if  at  all.  Even  in  sentences 

O  7 

so  short  that  they  would  be  readily  un- 
derstood in  either  shape,  a  talker  is  more 
likely  to  use  the  loose  than  the  peri- 
odic form.  We  might  naturally  write, 
"  Though  I  went  to  town  early,  I  had  no 
time  for  shopping;1'  but  it  would  be 
natural  to  say,  "  I  had  no  time  for  shop- 
ping though  I  went  to  town  early,"  or 
"  I  went  to  town  early,  but  I  had  no 
time  for  shopping." 

The   best  conversation    is    discursive 


216  OUR  ENGLISH. 

rather  than  methodical;  for  the  logical 
development  of  a  series  of  thoughts,  or 
even  of  a  single  thought,  suggests  that 
the  subject-matter,  if  not  the  language 
also,  was  arranged  beforehand.  It  is, 
therefore,  fatal  to  that  appearance  of  ex- 
temporaneousness  which  is  the  life  of 
good  talk,  and  which  enables  a  talker  to 
adjust  what  he  says  to  what  is  said  by 
the  rest  of  the  company.  Even  when  a 
man  attempts  to  persuade  the  person 
with  whom  he  is  talking  to  some  course 
of  action,  he  should  take  care  not  to  be 
too  consecutive,  not  to  press  a  point  too 
long  or  too  far.  The  arguments  may  be 
as  numerous  and  as  strong  as  one 
pleases,  but  they  should  not  be  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  lead  to  the  belief  that  the 

o 

chain  was  forced  beforehand.     Warmth 

O 

is  natural  to  an  earnest  talker,  but  it 
should  come  from  friction  with  opposing 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  217 

views.  Blows  may  fall  fast,  but  they 
should  not  seem  to  be  dealt  with  malice 
aforethought :  the  drawing-room  should 

o  o 

not  be  turned  into  an  arena.  One 
should  carry  the  day,  not  by  a  regular 
siege,  but  by  short  and  sharp  attacks. 
Witness  the  practice  of  Dr.  Johnson  and 
of  Carlyle. 

The  English  of  conversation  should 
be,  not  only  the  product  of  the  moment 
as  regards  words,  sentences,  and  general 
arrangement,  but  the  product — and  the 
best  product — of  the  talker's  mind.  It 
should  be  not  only  extemporaneous  but 
individual.  It  should  bubble  up  from 
its  source,  like  water  from  a  spring.  In 
the  effort  to  secure  literary  excellence, 
even  a  great  writer  is  in  danger  of  losing 
a  part  of  his  personality,  and  none  but 
the  greatest  succeed  in  putting  the  whole 
of  themselves  into  their  written  work. 


218  OUR  ENGLISH. 

For  a  talker  to  preserve  his  personality 
should  be  less  difficult,  since  from  him 
freshness  rather  than  finish  is  expected. 
If  he  be  thoroughly  himself,  we  give  him 
full  liberty  to  phrase  his  thoughts  as  he 
will,  sure  that  what  they  lose  in  exact- 
ness and  beauty  they  will  gain  in  force 
and  raciness.  If  he  says  what  occurs  to 
him  without  thinking  of  his  language, 
his  lanomao'e  will  be  the  best  he  has  at 

O          O 

hand.  If  his  talk  is  genuine,  it  will  count 
for  all  it  is  worth. 

Much  of  what  has  been  said  about  the 
English  of  conversation  holds  good  of 
the  English  of  addresses  that  are  not 
read  from  a  manuscript.  A  public  like  a 
private  speaker  should  beware  of  purism 
in  the  choice  of  words,  and  of  artificial- 
ity in  the  construction  or  the  arrange- 
ment of  sentences,  or  in  the  manner  of 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  219 

utterance.  A  doubt  whether  what  is 
apparently  extemporaneous  has  been 
learned  bv  heart  is  an  obstacle  to  sue- 

tf 

cess,  an  obstacle  far  more  serious  than 
faults  in  pronunciation  or  slips  in  gram- 
mar. From  these  even  eminent  orators 
are  not  altogether  exempt.  If  they  were, 
they  might  be  suspected  of  having  pre- 
pared in  cold  blood  what  they  speak 
with  apparent  passion — a  suspicion  that 
becomes  a  certainty  in  the  case  of  one 
who  uniformly  avoids  on  the  platform 
mistakes  such  as  lie  sometimes  makes  in 
the  drawing-room. 

Between  the  English  of  the  drawing- 
room  and  that  of  the  platform,  there  is, 
however,  one  important  difference.  A 
speech  is,  as  conversation  is  not,  consec- 
utive in  form,  and  it  should  be  so  in  fact. 
Arguments  should  be  presented  in  an  ef- 
fective order,  should  support  one  another, 


220  OUR  ENGLISH. 

should  lead  to  a  predetermined  conclusion. 
The  line  of  thought  maybe  illuminated  by 
illustrations  and  enlivened  by  anecdote ; 
but  in  all  speeches  which  aim  at  anything 
beyond  mere  amusement,  there  should  be 
a  line  of  thought.  Usually  it  is  wise  to 
commit  the  order  of  thought  to  memory 
—to  make  up  the  train,  so  to  speak,  be- 
fore starting;  but  the  couplings  of  the 
train  should  not  be  in  sight.  It  is  hard 
to  say  which  is  the  more  wearisome,  a 
speaker  who  rambles  through  the  uni- 
verse, with  no  destination  in  view  and  no 
apparent  reason  either  for  going  on  or  for 
stopping,  or  one  who  moves  slowly  along 
a  straight  and  sandy  road,  counting  the 
milestones  as  he  goes,  and  pointing  from 
time  to  time  to  a  distant  object  at  which 
the  tribulations  of  the  tiresome  journey 
are  to  cease.  The  best  speaker  is  he  who 
carries  his  hearers  forward  so  steadily 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  221 

and  so  agreeably  that  they  are  sorry 
when  the  journey  is  over.  Such  a  speak- 
er, Dr.  Ezra  Ripley,  the  old  Concord  min- 
ister, appears  to  have  been.  "  He,"  says 
Emerson,  "  had  a  foresight,  when  he 
opened  his  mouth,  of  all  that  he  would 
say,  and  he  marched  straight  to  the  con- 
clusion. In  debate  in  the  vestry  of  the 
Lyceum,  the  structure  of  his  sentences 
was  admirable;  so  neat,  so  natural,  so 
terse,  his  words  fell  like  stones ;  and 
often,  though  quite  unconscious  of  it,  his 
speech  was  a  satire  on  the  loose,  vo- 
luminous, draggle  •  tail  periods  of  other 
speakers.  He  sat  down  when  he  had 
done." 

Even  a  short  after-dinner  speech  should 
have  coherence;  and  it  will  be  all  the 
better,  if — like  the  five-minute  speeches 
with  which  Judge  Hoar  year  after  year 
delights  the  Harvard  chapter  of  the  Phi 


222  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Beta  Kappa  Fraternity — it  contains  but 
one  original  idea  clearly  stated,  and  but 
one  fresh  story  well  told. 

In  our  day,  the  best  speakers  prefer 
colloquial  to  declamatory,  or  oratorical, 
English — the  natural  language  used  in 
the  intercourse  of  daily  life  to  the  artificial 
language  so  common  a  century  or  even  a 
generation  ago.  The  movement  towards 
this  ideal  grows  every  day.  In  Great 
Britain,  indeed,  swelling  and  swollen  pe- 
riods, such  as  Chatham  thundered  forth, 
are  things  of  the  past.  In  Parliament, 
at  the  hustings,  at  Lord  Mayors'  and 
Literary  Fund  dinners,  speakers  aim  to 
say  what  they  wish  to  say,  or  to  hide 
what  they  wish  not  to  say,  in  simple  and 
business-like  words.  Their  graces,  if 
graces  they  have,  are  such  as  would 
shine  in  the  social  world.  Their  elo- 
quence, when  they  are  eloquent,  comes — 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  223 

as  it  might  come  in  society — from  the 
subject,  or  from  the  excitement  of  dis- 
cussion. 

In  the  United  States  we  are  moving 

O 

in  the  same  direction.  In  our  political 
conventions,  "highfaluten"  speeches  are 
still  made,  to  be  sure;  but  the  very 
newspapers  which  report  them  know 
that  they  are  "highfaluten,"  are  made 
for  "  buncombe,"  or  to  give  a  pretext  for 
flag-waving  and  for  "  yells "  for  a  favor- 
ite candidate.  In  the  country  at  large, 
such  speeches  are  endured  as  a  part  of 
"  the  campaign,"  conventionally  a  matter 
of  course,  but  in  no  respect  useful  ex- 
cept as  a  means  of  luring  innocent  voters 
who  are  to  be  finally  caught  by  more 
"  solid  "  considerations.  Even  stump- 
speeches  are  now,  as  a  rule,  addressed, 
in  appearance  at  least,  to  the  under- 
standing, and  are  couched  in  simple  Ian- 


224  OUR  ENGLISH. 

guage.  Wit  goes  farther  thau  decla- 
mation; a  homely  illustration  is  more 
telling  than  a  poetical  one.  The  Ameri- 
can love  of  bombast  has  made  way  for 
the  American  love  of  smartness.  Fourth 
of  July  fire-crackers  have  outlived  the 
pyrotechnics  of  Fourth  of  July  orations. 
We  still  praise  ourselves  freely,  as  our 
ancestors  did,  but  we  do  so  with  less 
"  fuss  and  feathers." 

At  the  bar,  a  similar  change  may  be 
noticed.  It  is  harder  than  it  once  was  to 
"  enthuse"  juries — if  I  may  use  a  word 
which,  like  "highfaluten,"  seems  to  imply 
that  what  was  once  sublime  has  become 
ridiculous.  Lawyers  talk  to  twelve  men 
instead  of  "addressing  the  panel."  Even 
Rufus  Choate,  were  he  to  come  to  life 
ainun,  would  find  it  difficult  to  win  such 

O  / 

cases  as  he  did  win,  unless  he  kept  his 
imagination  in  a  leash,  shortened  and 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  225 

simplified  his  periods,  and  made  his  de- 
livery conversational.  In  orations  on 
memorial  days  or  at  literary  festivals, 
colloquial  English  is  heard.  Even  the 
essays  spoken  at  college  commencements 
are  ceasing  to  be  "mere  emptiness."* 
In  the  Northern,  and  especially  the 
North-eastern  States,  the  preference  of 
colloquial  to  oratorical  English  is,  for 
obvious  reasons,  stronger  than  in  the 
South  and  the  extreme  West;  but  it 
is  showing  itself  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  It  is  a  preference  that  should 
be  encouraged  by  all  who  prefer  the 
simple  to  the  ornate,  the  natural  to 
the  artificial,  the  sensible  to  the  so- 
norous. 

*  Words  applied  by  a  critic  of  the  day  to  pas- 
sages in  an  oration  delivered  by  Daniel  Webster  in 
his  Sophomore  year  (1800) :  a  judgment  with  which 
Mr.  Webster  concurred. 
15 


226  OUR  ENGLISH. 

Epistolary  correspondence  might,  but 
for  its  limits  in  time  and  space,*  be 
defined  as  conversation  with  the  pen. 
In  a  letter,  since  there  is  almost  always 
an  opportunity  to  look  it  over  before  it 
is  posted,  slovenly  expressions  are  less 
excusable  than  in  what  falls  from  the 
lips;  but  even  in  a  letter  we  are  less 
shocked  by  slips  in  English  that  would 
disgrace  a  book  than  by  sentences  that 
bear  marks  of  preparation. 

Whatever  faults  of  expression  a  letter 
may  have,  it  is  a  good  letter  if  it  makes 
the  reader  feel  that  the  writer  is  speak- 
ing with  the  pen  out  of  the  fulness  of 
the  heart,  not  composing  something  to 


*  As  to  these  limits,  see  Charles  Lamb's  delight- 
ful essay  entitled  "Distant  Correspondents."  The 
difficulties  Lamb  found  in  communicating  with  a 
friend  in  New  South  Wales  hamper,  in  some  degree, 
all  correspondence  by  post. 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  227 

be  read.  When  we  hear  that  Lady  Duff 
Gordon  said,  "  I  never  could  write  a 
good  letter ;  and  unless  I  gallop  as  hard 
as  I  can,  and  don't  stop  to  think,  I  can 
say  nothing;  so  all  is  confused  and  un- 
corrected,"  we  feel  sure  that  her  letters 
are  agreeable  reading.  When  Swift 
writes  to  Lord  Bathurst,  "  I  swear  your 
Lordship  is  the  first  person  alive  that 
ever  made  me  lean  upon  my  elbow  when 
I  was  writing  to  him,  and  by  consequence 
this  will  be  the  worst  letter  I  ever  writ," 
we  expect  to  find  Swift  in  his  letters. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  told 
that  Lord  Orrery,  Swift's  "  noble  biog- 
rapher," made  transcripts  of  his  letters, 
"  following  regular  rules  of  composi- 
tion," "adding  chapter  and  verse  for 
model  and  pointing  out  the  elegance  of 
his  own  conceits,"  we  are  glad  that  Lord 
Orrery  does  not  write  to  us.  When  we 


228  OUR  ENGLISH. 

read  that  the  letters  of  Mr.  Day — the 
man  who  talked  like  his  own  "Sand- 
ford  and  Merton  " — were  written  as  fast 
as  his  pen  could  move,  and,  neverthe- 
less, are  so  rhetorical  as  "  to  give  the 
idea  of  their  being  composed  with  great 
care,"  we  are  thankful  that  we  are  not 
obliged  to  read  them. 

What  gives  charm  to  the  letters  of 
Swift,  Chesterfield,  Cowper,  Gray,  Lamb, 
Byron,  Dickens,  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  is 
their  air  of  having  been  written  off-hand 
and  of  being  charged  with  the  writer's 
personality.  When  a  letter  by  a  less 
famous  writer  deeply  interests  strangers, 
it  is  because  the  written  page  puts  them 
face  to  face  with  a  human  soul  which 
has  found  free  and  full  expression.  In 
private  life,  almost  every  one  who  has 
many  correspondents  counts  among  them 
one  at  least  whose  letters  have  a  per- 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  229 

sonal  charm,  and  are  as  delightful  as  his, 
or  more  frequently  her,  best  talk.  In 
Great  Britain,  indeed,  it  is  in  the  letters 
of  cultivated  women,  as  De  Quincey  said, 
that  pure,  idiomatic  English  survives. 

Letters,  on  the  other  hand,  that  were 
obviously  written  for  publication,  or  for 
effect,  or  as  pieces  of  composition,  are  in 
no  proper  sense  letters.  Pope's  famous 
productions  repel  a  reader  who  knows 
that  they  were  originally  composed,  not 
for  the  person  nominally  addressed,  but 
for  the  public,  and  were  unscrupulously 
edited  before  being  given  to  the  public. 
"Written  for  everybody,"  as  has  been 
said,  "  they  interest  nobody."  Even  Ern- 
erson's  letters,  good  as  they  are,  suffer 
from  his  practice  of  copying  them,  or  at 
least  from  our  knowledge  that  he  copied 
them.  Whether  he  expected  them  to  be 
published  after  his  death,  or  wished  to 


230  OUR  ENGLISH. 

make  his  sentences  more  epigrammatic, 
or  to  keep  his  correspondents  from  know- 
ing him  intimately, — whatever  his  rea- 
son for  taking  such  pains, — the  effect  is 
to  take  from  the  letters  the  freshness 
and  genuineness  of  familiar  talk.  To 
get  nearer  to  Emerson,  most  of  us  would 
willingly  give  up  the  Emersonian  polish 
which,  as  we  suspect,  the  letters  acquired 
between  the  first  draft  and  the  tran- 
script. 

The  same  absence  of  method  which 
characterizes  the  best  conversation  be- 
longs to  the  best  letters.  Aim  at  the 
regular  development  of  a  thought,  and 
your  letter  becomes  a  treatise.  Insist 
on  a  topic  too  long  or  too  earnestly,  and 
your  letter  becomes  a  sermon  or  an  ha- 
rangue. Letters  should  take  much  for 

O 

granted  and  leave  much  to  the  imagina- 
tion. A  letter-writer  cannot  emphasize 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  231 

or  eke  out  his  meaning  by  a  look  or  a 
gesture,  as  a  talker  can  do ;  but  he  may, 
if  he  knows  his  correspondent  well, 
strike  familiar  notes,  and  thus,  through 
the  association  of  ideas,  say  much  more 
than  appears  to  be  said.  "A  letter,"  as 
Jeanie  Deans  says,  "  cauna  look,  and 
pray,  and  beg,  and  beseech,  as  the  hu- 
man voice  can  do  to  the  human  heart;" 
but  it  can  touch  chords  in  a  heart  it 
knows  that  will  vibrate  long. 

We  have  still  to  consider  what  place 
colloquial  English  should  hold  in  books 
and  other  written  compositions. 

That  the  written  language  of  almost 
all  children  and  of  the  great  majority  of 
young  people  differs  widely  from  their 
spoken  language — and  not  at  all  for  the 
better — everybody  knows.  Everybody 
knows,  too, —  everybody,  at  least,  who 


232  OUR  ENGLISH. 

knows  the  history  of  the  language, — that 
a  difference  almost  as  great,  but  dissimi- 
lar in  origin  and  in  characteristics,  once 
existed  between  the  English  generally 
talked  and  that  written  by  the  few  to 
be  read  by  the  few. 

Not  that  the  distance  between  the  lit- 
erary and  the  living  language  was  ever 
so  great  in  English  as  in  some  other 
tongues;  but  even  down  to  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century  there  was  a 
marked  distinction  between  the  two. 
The  living  language  was  used  in  plays 
that  were  to  be  performed  before  a 
mixed  audience,  in  poems  that  were  read 
aloud,  in  translations  of  the  Bible,  and 
in  a  few  books,  like  "The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  written  by  uneducated  men 
and  aimed  at  the  popular  conscience; 
but  the  great  majority  of  authors,  ex- 
pecting to  be  read  by  scholars  only, 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  233 

used  scholastic  rather  than  popular  words 
and  constructions.  Dryden  was,  perhaps, 
the  first  prose  author  of  eminence  who 
recognized  the  importance  of  a  mastery 
of  living  as  well  as  of  literary  English ; 
and  even  he  had  not  learned  the  lesson 
thoroughly.  He  had  "  scattered  criticism 
over  his  prefaces,"  says  Dr.  Johnson, 
"  with  very  little  parsimony ;  but  though 
he  sometimes  condescended  to  be  some- 
what familiar,  his  manner  was  in  general 
too  scholastic  for  those  who  had  yet 
their  rudiments  to  learn,  and  found  it 
not  easy  to  understand  their  master. 
His  observations  were  framed  rather  for 
those  that  were  learning  to  write  than 
for  those  that  read  only  to  talk." 

When,  however,  the  reading  public 
came  to  include  many  persons  of  both 
sexes  who  were  far  from  being  scholars, 
writers  naturally  adapted  themselves  to 


234  OUR  ENGLISH. 

the  tastes  of  the  majority.  It  was  Ad- 
dison's  boast  that  he  had  brought  phi- 
losophy down  from  the  clouds  and  out 
of  the  closet,  and  had  served  it  with  the 
tea  and  toast  of  society.  It  was  Swift's 
purpose — achieved  with  wonderful  suc- 
cess— so  to  write  as  to  be  readily  un- 
derstood by  any  one  who  could  spell 
out  the  words  or  could  follow  a  reader 
who  had  spelled  them  out  in  advance. 
Defoe  did,  perhaps,  even  more  than 
Swift  or  Addison  to  diminish  the  differ- 
ences between  spoken  and  written  Eng- 
lish. His  writings  are  full  of  words 
taken  from  the  familiar  speech  of  plain 
people,  and  of  slips  of  expression  usual 
in  his  time  with  rapid  talkers  who  had 
more  mother- wit  than  culture.  Other 
writers  of  Queen  Anne's  time  followed 
in  the  steps  of  the  masters,  and  soon  the 
written  language  took  the  form  which  it 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  235 

has  kept,  in  the  main,  till  the  present 
time.  Modern  English  dates  from  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

In  one  eminent  contemporary  of  Swift, 
the  transition  from  ancient  to  modern 
methods  of  writing  was  towards  an  or- 
atorical rather  than  a  colloquial  style. 
Shut  out  from  Parliament  by  mistimed 
politics,  Bolingbroke  wrote  pamphlets 
that  sound  like  speeches,  and  that  reached 
a  much  larger  public  than  they  would 
have  reached  as  speeches.  Aiming  to 
compose  periods  that  should  sound  well, 
he  eked  out  his  matter  with  words,  his 
eloquence  with  declamation.  The  influ- 
ence of  his  swelling  sentences,  like  that 

O  ' 

of  Pope's  rhetorical  couplets,  was  felt 
through  the  eighteenth  century  and  far 
into  the  nineteenth,  was  felt  by  Macau- 
lay  and  Motley,  as  well  as  by  Gibbon, 
Johnson,  and  Burke.  These  authors, 


236  .       ,PUR  ENGLISH. 

with  all  their  merits,  suffer  more  or  less, 
like  other  writers  of  their  times,  from  a 
tendency  to  be  sonorous  rather  than  sim- 
ple, to  express  themselves  like  a  man 
with  a  speaking-trumpet  at  his  lips. 
Until  a  comparatively  recent  date,  or- 
atorical language  was  still  dominant  in 
newspapers  and  reviews,  as  well  as  on 
the  platform  and  in  the  pulpit.  Even 
now  there  are  authors,  as  well  as  public 
speakers,  who  have,  like  Daudet's  acade- 
mician, the  "  parole  £  son  d'ophicleide 
faite  pour  les  hauteurs  de  la  chaire." 

Happily,  however,  for  the  English- 
speaking  world,  the  influence  of  "The 
Spectator,"  of  "  Gulliver's  Travels,"  and 
of  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  has  been  strong- 
ly felt  by  succeeding  writers.  Goldsmith 
and  Sterne,  Cobbett  and  Franklin,  car- 
ried on  the  good  work  begun  by  the 
writers  of  the  age  of  Queen  Anne ;  and 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  237 

the  stream  of  tendency,  in  written  as  in 
spoken  work,  now  sets  towards  collo- 
quial, rather  than  literary  or  oratorical, 
English.  De  Quincey's  rhetorical  flights 
— admirable  in  their  way  as  they  are — 
find  more  critics  than  readers  nowa- 
days. Even  Mr.  Ruskin  is  ashamed — 
unduly  so,  perhaps — of  the  paragraphs  in 
"Modern  Painters"  which  were  praised 
on  all  hands  at  their  first  appearance, 
and  he  now  writes  in  a  simpler  style. 
Other  authors  have  taken  pains,  while 
revising  their  works,  to  substitute  short, 
plain  words  for  long  and  unfamiliar 
ones. 

The  reading  public  has,  indeed,  so 
little  taste  for  the  pompous  or  the  pe- 
dantic that  writers  who  have  a  weak- 
ness for  either  try  to  make  amends  by 
dropping  into  slang  now  and  then ;  but 
the  disposition  to  copy  in  books  the 


238  OUR  ENGLISH. 

faults  of  conversation  is  an  unfortunate 
one.  In  work  carefully  prepared  for  the 
press,  vulgarisms  which  are  common  in 
conversation  and  may  be  pardoned  in 
hastily  written  private  letters  have  no 
excuse.  A  style  may  be  rapid  without 
being  slovenly,  plain  without  being  low, 
and  racy  without  being  provincial. 

It  is  clear,  too,  that  lack  of  method, 
which  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  merit  in 
conversation  and  in  private  letters,  can- 
not but  be  a  defect  in  all  writings  which 

O 

are  not  intended  to  reproduce  conversa- 
tion or  letters.  Those  among  Addison's 
Spectators  which  are  least  methodical  in 
appearance  were  evidently  written  with 
a  definite  purpose  and  on  a  plan  of  their 
own ;  and  they  have,  therefore,  with  all 
their  variety,  unity  of  composition  :  but 
many  of  Steele's  papers  ramble  from  topic 
to  topic  like  ordinary  conversation  ;  they 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  239 

are  collections  of  paragraphs  rather  than 
essays.  Sterne,  who  to  many  readers 
seems  to  have  no  method  in  his  mad  gam- 
bols, assures  us  that  he  constantly  has 
the  end  of  his  journey  in  view,  and  moves 
towards  it  all  the  time,  though  by  a  cir- 
cuitous route.  De  Quincey,  on  the  other 
hand,  formally  announces  a  subject,  and 
then  proceeds  to  deal  with  every  subject 
under  the  sky  except  or  in  addition  to 
the  one  promised, — a  fault  which  renders 
not  a  few  of  his  essays,  in  spite  of  their 
brilliancy,  irritating  as  well  as  unsatis- 
factory to  a  reader  who  is  not  content 
with  a  discourse  on  matters  and  things 
in  general.  Emerson's  want  of  conti- 
nuity does  not  irritate, — that  he  could 
not  do, — but  it  saddens  and  perplexes 
those  who  wish  to  get  somewhere,  or 
who  feel  that  there  is  a  limit  to  their 
power  of  assimilating  detached  Orphic 


240  OUR  ENGLISH. 

sayings,  however  profound  in  substance 
and  striking  in  form. 

Are  there  any  other  particulars  in 
which  written  should  differ  from  spoken 
English  ?  Should  the  production  of 
rhetorical  paragraphs,  such  as  De  Quin- 
cey  plumed  himself  upon,  or  of  "  purple 
patches,"  such  as  Macaulay  proudly  put 
into  his  work,  be  encouraged?  Is  the 
style  of  Gibbon  or  that  of  Hume  to  be 
preferred?  the  style  of  Johnson's  "Ram- 
bler "  or  that  of  Goldsmith's  "  Citizen  of 
the  World?"  Ruskin's  later  style  or  his 
earlier  one  ? 

George  Sand  somewhere  says  that  it 
is  as  difficult  to  write  in  the  familiar 
style  in  which  one  talks  as  it  is  to  write 
in  an  ornate  and  literary  style,  and  that 
each  style  has  its  place.  Which,  how- 
ever, should  we  aim  at  by  preference? 
Should  we  strive  to  write  "like  a  human 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  211 

being,"  as  Bagehot  advises,  or  should 
we  array  our  ideas  in  full  dress,  as  some 
authors,  it  is  said,  do  their  persons  be- 
fore taking  up  the  pen  ? 

This  question  has  been  well  answered 
by  an  Irish  novelist  and  by  a  great 
French  critic.  "  The  writing,"  says  Miss 
Edgeworth,  "  which  has  least  the  ap- 
pearance of  literary  manufacture  almost 
always  pleases  me  the  best."  "  S'accou- 
tumer,"  writes  St.  Beuve, "  a  ecrire  comme 
on  parle  et  comme  on  pense,  n'est-ce 
pas  deja  se  mettre  en  demeure  de  bien 
penser?"  In  another  essay,  St.  Beuve, 
after  saying  that  in  the  writings  of  Fe"n- 
elon  and  Voltaire  "  all  true  French  rhet- 
oric, natural  rhetoric,"  is  to  be  found, 
cites  with  approval  a  passage  from  each. 
"Un  auteur  qui  a  trop  d'esprit,  et  qui 
en  veut  toujours  avoir,  disait  Fenelon, 
lasse  et  epuise  le  mien:  je  n'en  veux 
16 


242  OUR  ENGLISH. 

point  avoir  tant.  S'il  en  raontrait  moins, 
il  me  laisserait  respirer  et  me  ferait  plus 
de  plaisir:  il  me  tient  trop  tendu;  la  lec- 
ture de  ses  vers  me  devient  une  etude. 
Tant  d'eclairs  m'eblouissent ;  je  cherche 
une  lumiere  douce  qui  soulage  mes 
faibles  yeux.  Je  demande  un  poe'te 
aimable,  proportionne  au  commun  des 
hommes,  qui  fasse  tout  pour  eux,  et  rien 
pour  lui.  Je  veux  un  sublime  si  fami- 
lier,  si  doux  et  si  simple,  que  chacun  soit 
d'abord  tente  de  croire  qu'il  1'aurait 
trouve  sans  peiue,  quoique  pen  d'hommes 
soient  capable  de  le  trouver.  Je  prefere 
1'aimable  au  surprenant  et  au  merveil- 
leux."  The  passage  quoted  from  Vol- 
taire chimes  in  with  that  from  Fenelon : 
"Le  grand  art,  ce  me  semble,  est  de 
passer  du  familier  a  l'he>oique,  et  de 
descendre  avec  des  nuances  dedicates. 
Malheur  &  tout  ouvrage  de  ce  genre  qui 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  243 

sera  toujours  serieux,  toujours  grand !  il 
ennuiera:  ce  ne  sera  qu'une  declamation. 
II  faut  des  peintures  naiives;  il  faut  de 
la  variete ;  il  faut  du  simple,  de  1'eleve, 
de  1'agreable.  Je  ne  dis  pas  que  j'aie 
tout  cela,  mais  je  voudrais  bien  1'avoir; 
et  celui  qui  y  parviendra  sera  mon  ami 
et  uion  maitre." 

What  Fenelon  and  Voltaire  say  of 
verse  is  at  least  equally  true  of  prose. 
The  groundwork  should  be  the  familiar, 
the  simple,  the  agreeable.  If  the  sub- 
lime, the  elevated,  the  eloquent  comes 
into  a  piece  of  prose,  it  should  come  in  a 
shape  so  natural  as  to  lead  the  reader  to 
imagine  that  he  might  have  found  it 
himself,  should  come  and  should  go  by 
easy  and  gradual  steps,  as  it  does  with 
Cardinal  Newman  and  with  Thackeray 
at  their  best. 

The  language  of  books  should,  then, 


244  OUR  ENGLISH. 

be,  in  the  main,  the  language  of  conver- 
sation; but  it  should  not  be  that  of  poor 
conversation.  From  this  side  too,  Vol- 
taire utters  a  wise  word  of  warning. 
Speaking  of  Bayle,  whose  style  he  terms 
a  journalist's  style,  he  says :  "  Dans  son 
style  toujours  clair  et  naturel,  il  y  a  trop 
de  negligence,  trop  d'oubli  de  biense"- 
ances,  trop  d'incorrection.  II  est  diffus : 
il  fait,  a  la  verite",  conversation  avec  son 
lecteur  comme  Montaigne;  et  en  cela  il 
charme  tout  le  monde;  ruais  il  s'aban- 
donne  a  une  mollesse  de  style,  et  aux 
expressions  triviales  d'une  conversation 
trop  simple ;  et  en  cela  il  rebute  souvent 
rhomme  de  gout." 

An  author  who  tiiies  to  write  as  he 
talks  should,  in  fine,  be  careful  to  avoid 
the  faults  and  defects  of  conversation, 
while  retaining  its  excellences.  In  the 
effort  to  be  natural,  he  should  not  suffer 


COLLOQUIAL  ENGLISH.  245 

himself  to  be  incorrect  or  vulgar;  in 
his  disdain  of  the  arts  of  rhetoric,  he 
should  not  be  betrayed  into  slipshod 
English:  but  his  purpose  should  be  to 
write  as  he  talks  in  his  best  moments — 
a  purpose  not  easy  to  carry  out,  as  ev- 
ery one  who  has  tried  is  painfully  aware, 
but  worth  all  the  trouble  it  costs.  To 
write  as  we  talk  in  our  best  moments  is 
to  write  simply,  naturally,  sincerely;  to 
subordinate  manner  to  matter,  sound  to 
sense;  to  abjure  exaggeration  in  every 
form,  intellectual  or  emotional.  Thus, 
and  thus  only,  will  what  we  write  be 
the  exact  and  complete  reproduction  of 
what  we  think  and  feel  in  our  sanest 
and  most  fruitful  moods. 

THE  END. 


STUDIES  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


Studies  in  English  Literature :  being  Typical  Selec- 
tions of  British  and  American  Authorship,  from 
Shakespeare  to  the  Present  Time ;  together  with 
Definitions,  Notes,  Analyses,  and  Glossary,  as  an 
aid  to  Systematic  Literary  Study.  For  Use  in 
High  and  Normal  Schools,  Academies,  Semina- 
ries, &c.  By  Prof.  WILLIAM  SWINTON,  Author 
of  "  Harper's  Language  Series,"  and  Gold  Medal- 
ist Paris  Exposition,  1878.  pp.  xxxiv.,  638. 
With  Portraits.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $1  20. 

There  is  excellent  work  throughout  the  book,  which  is  one 
that  deserves  to  be  introduced  into  higher  schools  where 
English  literature  is  properly  taught. — Philadelphia  Evening 
Bulletin. 

Collections  of  typical  passages  from  the  writings  of  the 
masters  in  English  literature  are  many,  but  we  have  seen 
none  which  seemed  to  us  to  be  so  judiciously  made  or  so 
well  adapted  to  the  use  of  high  schools  as  the  work  prepared 
by  Mr.  William  Swinton.  .  .  .  The  selections  are  well  chosen 
the  notes  are  judicious  and  helpful,  and  in  general  the  work 
is  admirably  fit  for  its  purpose. — N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

Will  be  an  invaluable  aid  to  teachers  of  rhetoric  and  Eng- 
lish literature,  as  it  gives  extracts  from  representative  au- 
thors of  different  epochs,  with  an  excellent  characterization  of 
each  by  a  distinguished  critic,  notes,  literary  analyses,  and  a 
glossary. —  Cincinnati  Commercial. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

J^*  HAKPEU  &  BROTIIERS  will  send  the  above  work  by  mail,  postage 
prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt 
of  the  price. 


The  Principles  of  Rhetoric  and  their  Application. 
By  ADAMS  S.  HILL,  Boylston  Professor  of  Rhet- 
oric and  Oratory  in  Harvard  College,  pp.  vi., 
308.  With  an  Appendix  comprising  General 
Rules  for  Punctuation.  12mo,  Half  Leather, 
80  cents. 

We  commend  the  book  to  all  educators  of  youth,  and  we 
particularly  advise  those  who  are  seeking  to  educate  them- 
selves in  English  composition  to  make  a  thorough  study  of 
its  pages. — Christian  at  Work,  N.  Y. 

The  arrangement  of  the  work  is  excellent,  its  style  is  clear, 
and  it  is  in  all  respects  a  desirable  and  a  useful  manual  for 
students. — Saturday  Evening  Gazette,  Boston. 

It  is  succinct,  clear,  and  pithy,  and  covers  the  subject 
adequately.  ...  It  is  evidently  the  result  of  practical  experi- 
ence in  the  class-room. — N.  Y.  World. 

The  work  is  in  every  respect  an  excellent  one. — Commercial 
Bulletin,  Boston. 

Professor  Hill's  style  is  plain  and  direct,  and  his  book  de- 
serves an  immediate  and  permanent  place  in  the  schools  of 
the  country. — Boston  Transcript. 

His  style  is  direct,  lucid,  and  forcible  to  an  unusual  degree, 
and  he  is  exceedingly  happy  in  the  quotations  with  which  he 
illustrates  and  drives  home  his  meaning. . . .  We  can  recall  no 
other  volume  in  which  the  proper  use  of  language  is  at  once 
so  succinctly  and  clearly  set  "forth. — Philadelphia  Inquirer. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


&  BROTHERS  will  send  the  above  work  by  mail,  postage 
prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt 
of  the  price. 


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